“I’m sorry to hear that, Mam,” Keelin said quietly. “It’s a shame those were the reasons you married. I’m sorry none of you have known real love like I did, and do, with Armand.”
“Well, he is a Frenchman,” Brigid joked, breaking the tension, and they all laughed again.
“And was your first time good, Keelin?” Imelda asked, astonished, yet feeling decidedly liberated that she was having such a conversation with her daughter. This exchange was what being a mother and daughter was about. This was the way Keelin and Marie-Claire interacted, and now she was part of it, no longer the one on the outside. Imelda felt a surge of joy like she’d never felt before.
“It was. He was a nice chap and I fancied him like mad. It was when I went on holiday to Rhodes. On a moonlit night by the sea,” Keelin admitted. “Everything I wished for. So I wasn’t a virgin when I entered the Order. And then of course I met Armand in the Ivory Coast and fell for him hook, line, and sinker, and there was no going back. But I’d decided to leave before we became intimate. I couldn’t take the inequality, the way the Church treated women. And then I remember so clearly, when I discovered that I was pregnant, any guilt I felt disappeared. I knew I was meant to have my child. The power and privilege of carrying another life within me overcame everything.”
Brigid took a deep breath. “I felt that, too.” She smiled at her niece.
“You were pregnant?” Imelda nearly fell off her chair in shock.
“Yes. For three months. And I too felt that glory that Keelin talks about, despite the shame and guilt; I revelled in the knowledge I had a child inside me. It was a primal joy, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before or since. I lost my baby out on the hills, on my way home from Granny’s the Christmas Eve before I entered. I lost my baby the night a Virgin gave birth to hers. The irony was never lost on me.”
“But that was a terrible thing to happen, Brigid. Did you tell Mother?” Imelda couldn’t hide her dismay.
“What do you think? I was terrified. I was afraid I was going to end up in a home and have my baby taken from me. That was why I was determined Keelin would not be sent away, even though it was what the Order wanted. I understood what she was going through because I’d been there myself. In our day, getting pregnant outside of marriage was the worst catastrophe that could befall a girl. The family name would have been ruined. How could I tell Mother and Daddy?”
“And you never told me, either. You went through it all by yourself. Oh, Brigid, I am sorry. I wasn’t much of a sister to you.” There was a lifetime’s regret in her apology.
“We didn’t have that kind of relationship, Imelda. But it’s never too late.” She reached out and took her sister’s plump little hand in her own bony, thin one.
“What a waste of our lives—you envying me, me envying you, and each of us knowing nothing about the other’s turmoil.” Imelda stroked her hand gently.
“At least we didn’t go to the grave estranged, my dear. Let’s make up for lost time and enjoy the years we have left. Now that I’m a free woman, I’m game for anything,” Brigid declared briskly.
“There’s something else I need to say. Seeing as we’re being so honest with each other,” Imelda said slowly. “Keelin, I treated you so badly when you got pregnant, and then I let you think for all those months afterwards that it was your fault that your father died, when it had nothing to do with you, and was a result of that awful haemochromatosis. Something happened with me and Larry, years earlier, that had a terrible effect on me—”
“Ach, ladies, would yae like some sandwiches? The wind is dying down; ye could be lucky yet.” The landlady breezed into the conservatory, oblivious to the moment of revelation she’d interrupted.
“Um, perhaps later, thank you, we’ve not long had tea,” Brigid said calmly, noting Keelin’s tense expression and Imelda’s pale, strained face.
“Right. I’ll be away tae our wee house at the back. Call if yae need anythin’.”
“Thank you so much.” Brigid smiled graciously, thinking privately, Go, woman, and let us get on with things.
“We certainly will,” Marie-Claire said pleasantly, but her fingers were curled into her palms under the table and she felt sick. Were Imelda and her mother finally going to come to grips about their dysfunctional relationship and try to sort it out? Please let it go, OK, please, please let Maman and Granny make their peace, she prayed silently as the door closed behind their friendly landlady and they were alone again.
Chapter Fifty-One
She could feel it bubbling up inside her, wanting to be expelled out of her with volcanic force. That awful thing which she’d swallowed down and kept secret all her adult life. That cruel situation, which had poisoned her with grief, resentment, and envy, and ruined her marriage, and all that went with it.
Imelda looked at her family, gazing at her, concerned, expectantly and knew it really was now or never. She cleared her throat.
“Keelin, well, the thing is… I have a revelation, too,” she blurted, “but I think it’s going to hurt you, and I don’t know whether to tell you or not.” Imelda bent her head, uncharacteristically stuck for words.
“What is it, Mam?” Keelin’s voice had an edge of anxiety which Imelda misunderstood. Was there a hint of exasperation in her voice? Did her daughter think she was trying to steal Brigid’s thunder? Perhaps she should have stayed quiet.
“Tell us what’s troubling you, Granny?” Marie-Claire said kindly, noting her grandmother’s heightened colour and unusually bright eyes.
Imelda swallowed. She felt her throat close. “Give me a hot sup of that tea, will you?”
“Don’t say Johnny Larkin got you pregnant, too, Imelda!” Brigid exclaimed in consternation.
Keelin blanched. Was her mother trying to tell her that Larry wasn’t her father?
“No!… Oh no, Brigid! I was a virgin on the night of my wedding, for all the good it did me.” Imelda took a gulp of tea and gave a little splutter.
“Take it easy, Mam; sip it,” cautioned Keelin, feeling very uneasy about whatever disclosure was coming. Why would her mother say a thing like that?
Imelda took another drink of tea, putting off the moment of telling the others the secret she’d kept to herself for decades. It was a strange feeling to know that it was going to be released from her now, like a genie from a bottle.
“Mam, what is it you have to… er… want to tell us?” Keelin tried to hide her impatience. She’d a feeling that what was coming might explain her mother’s behaviour, but then again, knowing Imelda, it could very well be some molehill she’d built into a mountain.
“Larry was gay!”
Stunned silence descended on the other three women.
“What?” whispered Keelin, bewildered. Had she heard right? Could this actually be happening?
“Your father was a gay man, Keelin,” Imelda said quietly, all the adrenaline gone out of her. Her shoulders slumped and she felt quite exhausted.
“He couldn’t be. He f-f-fathered three children,” Keelin stammered, not thinking her response through.
“That was when he was hiding it from me,” her mother explained wearily.
“Imelda!” Brigid stood up and hurried over to her sister and put her arms around her. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep this to yourself all these years? Have you told no one?”
“Why didn’t you tell me your secret, Brigid?” Imelda shrugged. “We didn’t have that kind of relationship, you and I. And sure, what good would it have done? It wouldn’t have changed anything. I still had to live with it. I never told a soul,” she added sadly.
“At least you wouldn’t have lived with it alone. I would have supported you, Imelda,” Brigid said, devastated that her sister had lived most of her life with a burden that big to shoulder.
“And I would have supported you, Brigid.” Imelda reached out and took her sister’s hand. “We’re a right pair.” She managed a weak smile.
“Mam, you should have told me t
his years ago! It explains so much,” Keelin said slowly.
“How could I tell you, Keelin? You loved him so much. Far more than you loved me.” Imelda couldn’t resist the dig.
“I always thought you were mean to him. And he was so kind to you. I could never understand why, and now I do.” She started to cry, heart-wrenching sobs, her shoulders shaking. Marie-Claire jumped up and put her arms around her.
“It makes no difference to how he felt about you,” she assured her distraught mother.
“I know that. And it makes no difference to how I feel about him, but it made a difference to our relationship,” Keelin wept, pointing at Imelda.
“How so? Believe it or not, I love you very much. That’s why I kept your father’s secret from you until now.” Imelda wiped tears from her eyes.
“If you loved me that much, why wouldn’t you let me come home with Marie-Claire when she was a baby? Why did you treat me like a pariah?” sobbed Keelin.
“Oh, Keelin, when you got pregnant I felt I was being punished by a very harsh God. And your pregnancy was the last straw. I couldn’t cope. I was looking after the parents. I was starting an early menopause. I was always afraid Larry’s secret might get out one way or another. I know it’s not an excuse for turning my back on you. And I genuinely didn’t want everyone pointing the finger at you… for your own sake. There was no excuse for how I behaved in the early years when you needed me most,” she said earnestly. “But it’s my reason. From the moment I saw your father and the man that he loved, together, something twisted inside me. I felt unlovable. I felt unworthy of love. I felt I was a bad person and that this had been sent to me as a punishment.
“When I saw them kissing and heard Larry saying, ‘I love you,’ with such passion—words that I had longed with all my heart to say to a man and have him say the same in return, and then knew it would never happen—my life was blighted forever.”
“You saw them kissing?” Brigid exclaimed. “Oh, Imelda, how traumatic for you.”
“It was. I can still remember the shock and fright of it to this day. He and Fran Cassidy, who was the art teacher in the school, were in the storeroom behind the shop when I came upon them—”
“But Daddy wasn’t in any way effeminate,” Keelin interrupted, unable to get her head around her mother’s disclosure.
“Ah now, Keelin, you know better than that. Look at Rock Hudson. Look at Leo Varadkar—” Imelda raised an eyebrow at her.
“Yeah, that was daft of me. Sorry. I’m dumbfounded. I never had any inkling.”
“Nor had I. The young man he was in love with was less of a masculine type than Larry. He was on the slender side, very quiet. He loved art and poetry and stuff like that. He left for England soon after I saw them together, and committed suicide a year later. Your father was devastated when he heard the news. He had a sort of nervous breakdown. I tried to keep it from you and the boys, and to keep him going as best I could—”
“Oh, Mam, that’s awful!” Keelin burst into fresh tears. “Poor Dad! And that unfortunate young man. And poor you!”
“It was very hard for them. Ireland then was a far more harsh and intolerant place than it is now. When I saw them kissing… well, to tell the truth, I felt sick. I was horrified. Disgusted. In turmoil. I didn’t understand it.” Imelda’s eyes darkened at the memory of that unspeakable time. “Gay men and boys in those days got badly beaten up and chased out of villages and towns for ‘dropping the hand,’ as they called it. Homosexuality was a jailing offence then. And of course the Church’s preachings about it were vile and so condemnatory. There was none of God’s love for you if you were a gay man or woman, which was another reason I turned my back on that lot of Pharisees and why I didn’t want you becoming a nun for them.” She shook her head as memories flooded back. Imelda reached out and took her daughter’s hand. “I didn’t handle it well a lot of the time and that was why I often lashed out. I was worried that the boys would be gay—not because I was against it anymore; I came to understand it, believe it or not—but I didn’t want them to go through the hardships their father and other gay young men went through in this country.”
“No wonder you were so anti-religion, so anti-Church. I never understood why,” Keelin said slowly. She was in total shock at what her mother had disclosed. It explained so much of Imelda’s behaviour.
“Thank God that has changed,” Imelda sighed. “How I wished Larry had been alive for the same-sex marriage referendum. When I made my mark against the ‘Yes’ box, I whispered, ‘This is for you, Larry.’ Because I felt very guilty, too, about marrying him. He knew I didn’t love him when we stood at the altar.”
Imelda gave another sigh that came from the depths of her. “Even if your father wasn’t gay, Keelin, I should never have married him. I married for all the wrong reasons. I thought I was in love with Johnny Larkin, but Brigid was right”—she flashed a glance at her sister—“it was first love and a teenage crush. I thought I’d never fall in love with anyone else, so I took the first escape route that was offered, and that was with your father. And he was looking for someone to marry, too. To conform to what was ‘normal’ in those days and pretend he was someone other than who he was. He denied who he was to himself, until the day I walked in on him with Fran. After that, there was no denying it. No going back. And believe it or not, it was a liberation of sorts for him.
“We never had sex again, and he felt terrible guilty because he felt I should have a proper married life and because of who he was I was denied it. So we struggled, I can tell you, especially in those early years after I found out. But, believe it or not, Keelin, your father was my best friend and I was his and we eventually accepted each other for what we were and found a middle way. He knew what was behind my unhappiness and bitterness and he made allowances for me, just as I made allowances for him. It wasn’t all bad. I did miss sex, though, because I was a healthy woman with rampant hormones and desires, so I might as well have been a nun.” She gave a shaky grin.
Brigid gave her a sympathetic pat on the hand. “It’s the pits, isn’t it? Being horny and wanting a man. I’ll never forget my menopause. Those surges that would sweep over you—”
“Oh yes! Did you have them, too? They nearly did my head in. Girls, you pair are so lucky; have as much sex as you can,” Imelda joked to Marie-Claire and Keelin, and they stared at her, astonished.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Imelda said. “Brigid and I were normal young women, once, too. You know the biggest irony?”
“What?” asked Keelin warily.
“The day I found your dad and Fran together, I had come back from Dublin with condoms Teresa had bought for me, up in Belfast, when the women went up North on the Contraception Train, as it’s called now. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humour.”
“My God, Mam, you’ve kept this to yourself all these years. Could you not have shared it with me, even when I was older?” Keelin squeezed her mother’s hand.
“Why would I? You adored your father and he adored you. You were the light of his life. I didn’t want to make you miserable and burden you with my problems. I had made you unhappy enough in life as it was. I wasn’t a good mother and I’m sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
“Mam, if only I’d known, I would have understood more. I wish you’d told me sooner. It explains so much. Let’s try and put the past behind us and make the most of what we have now, will we?” Keelin came around the table and put her arms around Imelda.
Imelda exhaled a deep, weary sigh. Now that she’d finally said her piece she was shattered. “Keelin, that would be all I could wish for,” she said quietly, nestling into her daughter’s embrace. “I think Larry helped us plan this trip. You were right, Brigid; it is our time of healing.”
“I think so, too, Imelda. It’s a fresh start for us after all these years. And a new beginning for you and Keelin,” Brigid agreed, wiping tears from her eyes.
“I think the four of us are goin
g to have a lot of fun for the rest of this trip, despite everything.” Marie-Claire put in her tuppence-worth, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Never in a million years had she expected a revelation like this from her grandmother. “When we get to the hotel tonight we’re having a champagne celebration,” she announced.
“Maybe sherry, not champagne,” demurred Brigid. “That might be a step too far.”
“I will if you will,” Imelda declared. “I’ve never had champagne.”
“Oh well, we can’t have that, then,” Brigid said with a twinkle in her eye.
“Four Wild Women Go on a Bender,” Keelin interjected, shakily wiping her tear-stained face.
“Oh, look!” exclaimed Marie-Claire, pointing to the window. “There’s a rainbow over Iona. The sky is clearing.”
“Well, isn’t that gas? Snowflakes one minute, rainbows the next. I feel right at home. Just like the weather in Ireland—four seasons in one day,” Brigid observed. She’d thought Imelda had had the ideal life. How wrong was she? The old Native American proverb came to mind: Don’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins. She’d judged her sister harshly, being too smug and superior to find out what lay behind Imelda’s behaviour. Some sister she was.
“Imelda, I’m so sorry I didn’t know of your burdens. I failed you badly.” Her lip trembled.
“Ah look, we can’t change the past, but we can change our future, Brigid.” Imelda stood up and held out her arms to her sister and they hugged tightly.
Keelin and Marie-Claire looked at each other, hardly able to believe what they were seeing. This truly was a life-changing moment for all of them. A day they would never forget.
“Look, the wind’s dying down. We’ll be getting to Iona today; I’m sure of it.” Keelin raised her cup to her companions. “And no better women to go exploring than us. I bet we were all nuns over in that nunnery in a past life.”
The Liberation of Brigid Dunne Page 34