The Gift of Friends

by Emma Hannigan

  That was that. Within days she’d found herself dumped at a mother and baby home in the midlands, far away from where she’d been raised and all she’d ever known. The nuns had taken her in, given her a narrow hard bed to call her own in a dormitory of thirty girls, all in the same shocked state as herself. They were a sorry bunch, that’s for sure, broken by what they’d been through. No girl should ever have to experience being abandoned by her family, Nancy thought, then realised that her son might feel the same way about her. It wasn’t her fault, though. The laundry had its own, never-ending routine and the girls were powerless to change it. It ended the same way for all of them.

  They were woken at dawn and brought into the laundry where they scrubbed sheets and blankets. When their time was near, they were moved onto ironing. The food was basic and horrible, and as a result fainting was common. Nancy remembered blacking out quite often, coming to with a nun standing over her, glaring down, ordering her back to her feet. They were treated like animals, as if they were dumb and stupid and a lower order than everyone else. It created a sense of black despair that ran through the whole place like a poison. It seeped out of the walls, affecting every one of them. As your belly grew, your sense of self shrivelled up and vanished. Nancy wiped away a tear. She hated thinking about it.

  Luckily for her, she was small and not at all developed, so the priests never sent for her. But she watched the girls who were called dragging their heels, their faces dark with fear and dread. The stories they came back with would curdle your blood. Sexual abuse was rampant and it was no wonder so many of the girls ended up with severe psychiatric issues afterwards, and sometimes for life. Sure, wasn’t that what had happened to Nancy herself?

  When the pains started, she was taken to a bare room with one of the narrow hard beds in the middle of it and nothing much else. She was told to lie on the bed and stay there until she was done, and not to be screaming the place down. The next twenty hours were a blur of pain and terror, but when her baby slid out and the nun caught him and held him up, Nancy had been astonished at what she’d done. This perfect little creature, crying for her. She had been overwhelmed by the reality of him. Even after all the pain, she felt a rush of love for him and his tiny vulnerability. He was perfect.

  She was allowed to stay with him for a whole month. That was more than most and she’d always wondered if it was because he was colicky and had cried a lot. She’d tie him onto her with old sheets while doing her work, and that would soothe him. She’d named him David.

  Then one day, without warning, she was summoned to a room in the main house where the nuns all lived. She was told to be a brave girl and to hand her baby to the head nun. In return, she was given a single photo of her precious son. The nun put it on the table beside her and told her that she could have that as a reminder of what a fallen woman she was. She didn’t feel like a woman, she felt like a terrified and traumatised child who had nobody on her side. There was no contact from her parents and nobody came to see her.

  She had tried, God knows. She told them no. She argued, told them she loved him and would mind him always. That earned her a lashing across the backs of the legs with the cane. Then two nuns held her while the head nun prised little David from her arms. When his warm little body left hers, she felt a cold run through that had chilled her for years. All the drinking, that had been an attempt to erase that cold, even for a while. She drank to ward off the sorrow and the shame, but it never did. It took her decades to realise that, Nancy thought, with a tired smile. She reached down and rubbed Nelly’s head, desperately needing to anchor herself in the present, to remind herself that that was then and this was now. It was amazing how something could be so long ago and yet feel so raw and real.

  David had been given to a couple who arrived that very day. The deal was done, and Nancy had no way to challenge it or undo it. She was a fallen woman, the lowest of the low, and anything she felt or thought didn’t matter in the slightest. She couldn’t have felt any worse if they’d reached in and pulled her heart out with their bare hands. The pain was as much mental as physical, maybe more so. It was so awful that she went into a decline and refused to speak or eat or drink, so the nuns sent her to a hospital, where she was told in no uncertain terms that the next stop was the nut house. That put the fear of God in her, so she had pretended to be fine. Mercifully, she was released from hospital.

  She couldn’t go home, so she had gone to Dublin first and the nuns helped get her a job in a big house, cleaning and learning to cook. She was clever with money and saved up enough for a ticket to London, and from there she went on to America. Each day, she’d look at the single photo she carried of her baby. Years of nightmares, drinking binges and bouts of depression followed. She’d married and divorced three times, but never managed to have any more children. She’d long thought God or the nuns had cursed her womb, but then later, when the drinking stopped, she realised she was glad it hadn’t happened for her. It was better this way. She liked her independence, travelling freely, putting herself first, it suited her. She wasn’t cut out to be a mother, she reckoned, so being not-a-mother had become an important part of who she was. She told no one about David, not even her friends on Kingfisher Road. He was her one true secret.

  She picked up the letter again. So now what? She had spent a lifetime forgetting him, grieving him, wrecking her life because of him, and now here he was, wanting to meet her. He carried the whole of her painful past with him and she wasn’t sure she had the strength to relive it. What would he want to know? Could she tell him the truth about his tragic beginnings? It did say he’d had a good life, so at least she didn’t have that on her conscience. It was her who’d paid for it entirely, it seemed. PJ went on as if nothing had ever happened, and David had a normal childhood, so it was only her who was almost destroyed by it. She felt a flash of anger and jealousy to think of it, then immediately gave out to herself for thinking it at all. See, she thought to herself, I’m not a proper mother if I can be jealous of my own child for getting off lightly. I should be rejoicing.

  It was all so complicated. She was nearly seventy, and this person – Steve – wanted her to be – what? Did he want a mother, or just the truth of his own origins? She shook her head, wishing the letter had never arrived. She had to answer it, which meant she had to decide, and she’d banked on getting through life without ever having to make that decision. But then, what about his decision, his need? Wouldn’t it be wrong to deprive him of this reunion? Shouldn’t she put him first, because really, as she knew from her friends, that’s what a mother always does – puts herself last in line.

  ‘That’s why I’m no mother, Nelly,’ she said, rubbing the dog’s ears. ‘He’ll be sorely disappointed if he meets me. I’ll never live up to any expectations he’s carrying.’

  She sighed and laid her head back in the chair again. Fifty-three years. One month together and fifty-three years later, a letter. It was too much to take in. But slowly, in the corners of her mind, she could feel curiosity growing. She could feel the memory of holding his little perfect body taking root. Who had David turned out to be? This might not be what she wanted, but could she really live out her days without finding out?

  Chapter 9

  SETH WAS RETURNING TO CYPRUS FOR THE LAST time. He’d spent six weeks there finishing off a training course he’d been running. He’d had a two-week break at home and now he was headed out for the month of November to tie up loose ends. After that, his retirement would begin just prior to Christmas.

  As she dropped him to the airport where he would meet with the rest of his troop, Pearl could see a visible change come over Seth. His chest puffed out a little and his frame rose higher and it was clear he was getting ready to do what he loved best. To be the person he was most comfortable being.

  Neither of them was exactly comfortable when he was at home. He had nobody to order around properly, which was really his favourite thing. He also loved being in uniform and being around other people in u
niform. If he had his way, they would all stand in a line and have their shoes looked over, a thing he did to Drew when he was small. Drew hated it, but Pearl kept saying that Daddy was simply trying to help them. Deep down, though, she hated it too. She couldn’t understand how polished shoes or standing straight had any bearing on the real world. But Seth was a bully, and she knew the safest thing was to just go along with him. His temper could flare at the drop of a hat and once that happened, they were all in danger of being on the end of a tongue-lashing, at the least.

  Whenever he was home, he spent his time correcting Drew and, in a more subtle way, criticising her. During his summer furlough, he’d built a log shed in the back garden. He’d instructed her to have a large tree stump delivered from a woodland he had a connection with. He chopped it up into rounds at first, then logs. Poor Drew was ordered to don his work clothes and help out.

  ‘His mind might be a bit muddled,’ Seth had barked, ‘but that doesn’t mean his body can’t do the work of a proper man.’

  The word proper had hit Pearl harder than a brick to the back of the head. He’d never accepted Drew’s limitations. He’d never even tried to understand his son. He wasn’t interested in who Drew actually was, although that meant Seth was the one missing out, she’d always known that. When she saw Drew with Tommy, she daydreamed that he’d been Drew’s father from the get-go.

  The thought of Seth’s imminent retirement had brought her into a state of such dread, she’d developed eczema. The rash had begun behind her knees and had spread to her arms and even her scalp. She’d gone to the doctor, who had prescribed a cream and told her to try and avoid stressful situations.

  But the fact of the matter was that she was completely stressed, because she lived in terror of Seth’s retirement. She’d lain awake at night for months, wondering how on earth she’d cope with having him there all the time. It would be torture. She’d never get away from the sly, barbed comments, and he’d reduce poor Drew to a gibbering mess on a daily basis. Her skin would be raw and no amount of magic cream from any doctor would be able to help.

  How would she get to spend proper time with Tommy? The way it worked right now was that she’d visit him in the mews. Some days they’d go to bed for a while, if Drew was at school. Other days they simply chatted and shared a cuppa while laughing at the ups and downs of life. It was easy and relaxed and reliable, which was exactly what she needed.

  That was the biggest difference between her relationship with Tommy and with Seth. She and Tommy laughed. It might be over the simplest thing, but they had such a joyful time together. She also knew that Tommy loved them both – her and her darling Drew. He told them often enough. When he said it to Drew, a fine big man with the gentle mind of a six-year-old, he’d almost purr. If she was there to witness it, he’d point at Tommy and tell her, his shoulders rising and falling in the glee of it all, ‘Tommy loves me, Mama.’

  ‘I know he does,’ she’d say. ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’

  Twice a year, for a week in the summer and for two weeks at Christmas, Tommy packed a bag and returned home to his family in Cork. Those days were the longest and most lonely of Pearl’s life. If she was lucky, Seth wasn’t around during Tommy’s holidays. At Christmas, he was usually away. She often suspected he offered to work the Christmas schedule, the one no one else wanted. Drew adored Christmas and still believed in the magic of Santa Claus, which had become a bone of contention over the years.

  Seth had tolerated this notion while Lily-Rose and the boys were little. Of course, Drew was only small then, too. But when the others moved on and Drew became a deep-voiced man with a chest size bigger than his father’s, Seth couldn’t cope with his juvenile ways. ‘He needs to be sat down and told there’s no Santa Claus and that all this nonsense with stockings must stop.’

  ‘Don’t be cruel,’ Pearl had pleaded. ‘You’d break his heart. He doesn’t understand. He never will. Don’t you get it, Seth? This is the way he’ll stay. His mind is frozen in time, but that doesn’t mean his body is. He isn’t trying to annoy you. He doesn’t do anything with nasty intent.’

  Seth had muttered under his breath, but he’d let the subject drop. Instead she noticed he wasn’t there to witness his son’s glee at the Easter Bunny leaving eggs around the garden. He avoided Christmas like the plague and was rarely there for his birthday parties. Drew still wanted a traditional party at home, with Rice Krispie buns, jelly and ice-cream and a big birthday cake with candles. Last year they’d had a magician come along and he and the others from his day care centre had been mesmerised by the tricks. Each of them got a balloon animal to take home and Drew had hugged her and Tommy saying it was his ‘bestest party ever’. Seth’s absence wasn’t even noted by Drew, who looked to Tommy as the male figure in his life.

  When the temper tantrums hit, that was when she needed Tommy’s brawn. Drew had a tendency to fly off the handle for no apparent reason. She’d ended up with countless black eyes and on one occasion, when his precious and much-loved brown bunny toy had been left in a shop, she’d ended up with a broken rib. Tommy had heard her screams or God only knew what might’ve happened. She never told Seth about it. Tommy managed to calm Drew down and the three of them went to the local A&E where she was strapped and given painkillers.

  Drew slept for twelve hours afterwards and she barely slept one. Tommy stayed over that night. The golden rule about being together in Pearl’s bedroom was broken, but they only lay in each other’s arms, so Pearl reasoned that she hadn’t performed any acts in her marital bed with another man. On bad days, she still thought back to that night and tried to remember what it was like to be in the embrace of a person she truly loved. She was in love with Tommy, and with all her heart too. It wasn’t an affair that was ruled by sex, although he was able to make her feel things that Seth probably thought were illegal.

  ‘Why don’t you leave him?’ Tommy had asked her, many years ago.

  ‘I can’t,’ she’d said. ‘I wouldn’t be able to stand the stress of the break-up. We’d have to sell the house . . . It would be awful for Drew, and Lily-Rose and the boys look to me as their stability too.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he’d said, putting his hand on her arm. ‘I won’t ask again.’

  She’d told him to go and find a single woman, someone who could give him children and the full relationship he deserved, but Tommy had smiled and told her that he’d rather an hour a week with her than twenty-four hours a day with anyone else.

  As the years rolled by, she forgot that she was keeping him from a life as a husband and father. They were a lovely unit and she knew that nobody suspected a thing. It had all worked out so well, until now.

  Nothing would ever be the same again once Seth retired. There’d be very little time for her and Tommy to be alone together. Even their walks in the park when Drew brought his scooter – something Seth didn’t approve of – would have to be done when Seth was otherwise engaged. There’d be very little fun allowed, that was for sure.

  She’d tried to organise a little family outing to the local park yesterday, before Seth headed off this time. Drew was out the front of the house wearing a very thin rain jacket with no warmth in it.

  ‘Please come back inside and put on your puffa jacket,’ she’d begged him. ‘You’ll freeze in that coat. It’s only for the summer. It’s October and there’s frost on the ground.’

  ‘No,’ he’d said. ‘I like this one. It fit me and it’s mine.’

  Seeing as he’d insisted, she hadn’t wanted to waste time arguing. She knew he’d end up freezing and miserable and she’d have to run him a warm bath as soon as they got back. Still, that wasn’t the end of the world. He had knee and elbow pads and a helmet, a set Pearl had bought after one too many falls where he’d come down heavily on his poor knees and ended up with nasty cuts. But the ensemble had made Seth flare with rage.

  ‘He’ll look like an idiot at the park dressed like that. A great big fat man, fumbling along on a scooter that could buck
le under his weight at any second. And as for that dreadful mac-in-a-sac jacket? It’s pure comedy. And you’re worse, encouraging him.’ Then a hateful curl of his upper lip spurred him on. Once Seth started being nasty, he couldn’t help himself. ‘And as for farmer Joe who lives in our shed, laughing and skitting with Drew as if life is just a doddle. It’s a bit like a game of spot the idiot. Which one of these men is truly mentally handicapped and which is just mental?’

  Pearl was shocked by his language. ‘Seth, please, can you stop?’

  He glared at her. ‘I’m not a fan of that country bumpkin you insist on having around the place. When I retire, we can get rid of him too.’

  She froze with fear at the thought of him firing Tommy. Life would be unbearable without him.

  ‘He’s very good with Drew and you know how Drew hates change . . .’ she began, before realising she was talking to herself. Pearl followed her husband out to the front gate. Drew had disappeared.

  ‘Drew?’ she called frantically, worried that he’d gone out by himself. ‘Drew?’

  ‘I’m heeeere,’ he said as he ran around the side of the house. ‘Look, I found some more stuff in the shed. I’m winter-ready now, right?’ He had found lots of reflective clothing and put it on. In fact, he’d gone to the large trunk in the shed and had put on every belt, gilet, jacket and reflective item they owned.

  ‘For crying out loud, you couldn’t have made him look more ridiculous if you tried.’ Seth chuckled and pointed at Drew, who joined in with the laughter.

  ‘Do you like my things, Dad? Mama says I need to be seen to be safe.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll take off one of the belts or the large over-jacket, seeing as it’s not dark just yet,’ Pearl suggested. ‘I promise you’ll be safe at the park without them all on. One or two is enough, okay?’

  ‘No.’ Drew shook his head and went to scoot out of the gate. Before she could stop him, Seth ran and grabbed Drew by the back of his reflective jacket.