by Liz Nugent
‘After your father locked your mother and the boys into the house and set fire to it, he went outside and shot himself.’
I gasped in shock. ‘What! … It was an accident, the fire was an accident!’
‘Jesus, Biddy,’ said Nora.
‘Dr Miller told me they were all found dead in their beds, from the fumes, because of the thatch. He wouldn’t have lied …’ I held on to the bar as I felt the impact of her words roll over me like the waves I could hear beyond the loud buzzing in my head. I remembered the shotgun above the mantelpiece that we were not allowed to touch, though Daddy showed me how it worked when we’d go shooting rabbits.
‘Stop!’ said Mary Scurvy. ‘She doesn’t need to know any of this. Let her go back to the mainland and be done with us.’
Biddy Farrelly’s mouth twisted in disgust. ‘I’m only telling her so that she knows never to come back.’
Nora shook her head. ‘Biddy, she was a child. She couldn’t have known …’
Biddy Farrelly continued: ‘My Tom told me. You poured poison in your father’s ear about Loretta and my Tom. You told him they was up to no good. And my Tom would never have touched her –’ She clamped her hand over her mouth.
‘That’s enough!’ said Mary.
As I stood in Biddy Farrelly’s bar, I felt the wash of the seawater outside in my body. Duggan stirred on his bar stool, and Mary lowered her voice so as not to wake him.
‘I think it’s best for everyone if you get on the ferry and never come back here. Enough lives have been destroyed. It’s only the islanders that know the truth. The police were kept out of it. There was a storm that kept them away for three days. We were able to make it look like an accident. We don’t need to give them another excuse to get us off the island.’ Them. The authorities on the mainland who wanted to move everyone on shore.
‘But I didn’t know … I was a child. How could I know? And Mammy, and Tom … she was going to take us away, back to America –’
Biddy came out from behind the bar and pushed me roughly towards the door. I used the only weapon in my armoury.
‘I’m pregnant,’ I said. Everything went still for a moment. The women seemed dazzled by the statement.
‘Are you?’ said Mary, all the animosity vanished from her voice.
I did not have to answer as Nora pushed her hand to my belly. ‘She is.’
‘We need her,’ said Mary.
I knew immediately what they meant. When I was a girl, a pregnant woman on the island was revered because her baby meant another student for the primary school, it meant an increase to the dwindling population. One woman whose drinking was believed to have caused her miscarriage was never forgiven, and eventually she drank herself to death. I remember her. I remember the celebrations when she announced her pregnancy. Nobody cared that the father was a tourist that we’d never see again. After the miscarriage, Daddy told me to turn away when she said hello on the road. I heard it was a week before they found her body. On this island, more so than the rest of the country, women were vessels. I would be valued here, I thought.
The three women eyed each other nervously, and for a moment nobody spoke at all.
Then Biddy said, ‘It makes no difference. She can’t stay.’
‘But the boy –’ said Mary, and Biddy slammed her fist on to the counter, startling us all. Nora glared Mary into silence.
‘The father won’t be with me,’ I said. ‘I’m here on my own. Just me and a baby. Isn’t that what you need?’ I pleaded with them. ‘I have nowhere else to go.’
Biddy folded her arms. ‘No.’
The other women looked at the floor. Biddy Farrelly still ruled the island.
I was reeling from the shock of the story about my father. I knew they wouldn’t make up such a tale. I recalled what had happened leading up to the time I left the island. I had told my father that I’d seen Tom kissing Mammy. The truth was the other way around. It was unfair to blame me. And yet I knew well the ability of islanders to bear a grudge. Whatever they believed was set in stone and I would never be forgiven, not by that generation. I upended the table on which the tourists’ glasses sat, and was satisfied as they smashed and splintered across the flagstone floor.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m going.’
The women began to argue over the head of Duggan, who stirred and mumbled that he wanted another pint. I slammed the door and headed back to get my suitcase. As I passed the bar again on my way to the pier, I could see through the window that more islanders had gathered. I recognized the heads of Anthony and Breda, the parents of Malachy, and my old schoolmaster, Spots McGrath. They all stared as I passed, and not one gave a flicker of acknowledgement. No matter what happened back in Westport, I was going to be better off there than I was here.
As I approached the ferry, I could see a familiar figure standing beside Owen on the pier wall. Tom the Crow. I was sure he would understand.
‘Tom!’ I said. ‘I’ve only just heard what happened the night of the fire. They’re all blaming me –’
‘Get on the ferry,’ he said.
‘Tom, come on, you can’t seriously hold me responsible? I was nine years old. I had no notion –’
Tom pushed me roughly in the direction of the gangway and I stumbled, but Mary Scurvy had arrived behind me. ‘Don’t Tom, she’s pregnant.’
I broke down. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to go to America. I didn’t want to be separated from Daddy.’
Tom did not look at me. ‘You lied,’ he said. ‘Cast her off,’ he called to Owen.
Owen unhooked the line from the mooring post and started the engine. The ferry wasn’t supposed to leave for another hour, but my leaving of the island was clearly urgent to them. I sat in the hold, weeping, as Owen faced forward, never once looking back.
I could barely take in what I had learned. I remembered the rows between my parents, but I had never guessed the fire wasn’t an accident. My father had murdered his whole family. All except me. Did he know what he was going to do when he sent me off on the ferry? It gave me some comfort to think that he chose to save me. He loved me the most.
12
When I returned to Westport late that night, neither Alan nor Moira asked where I’d been. Maybe they had hoped that I would solve their problem by running away. But now the problem was back under their roof and they would have to deal with it. From that time on, I never referred to them as my aunt and uncle. There was no further need for pretence. They must have noticed but they didn’t comment on it.
It was left to the men, Alan Walsh and Declan Russell, two men in their sixth decade, to decide my fate while I sat passively the next morning, my mind churning with the facts I had learned on Inishcrann. My father had murdered my mother and my brothers and then shot himself. I recalled the excitement of his tempers and I knew in my heart that he was capable of it. These are the thoughts that were whizzing through my brain while people who were in no way related to me decided what was going to happen next.
Alan said to Mr Russell, ‘Your family destroyed mine once before, but I’ll not let it happen again – by God, I won’t. You know what I’m talking about.’
Mr Russell tried to take control. ‘You’re talking nonsense as usual, Alan Walsh, and you need to let go of the past. It’s all in your head. You have kept your distance from us for over thirty years, but then this’ – he pointed at me – ‘slattern appeared. We weren’t happy about it from the beginning. If we’d known she was a stray, we might not have welcomed her into our house, but we were led to believe that she was your family. Whatever you may think of us, we’re not ones to hold a grudge –’
‘You weren’t the wronged party,’ Alan growled at him.
I had no idea what they were talking about.
Mr Russell challenged Alan: ‘Did I not see you punch my son in the jaw yesterday? I could have the guards up here if I wanted and you know it.’
Alan looked mutinous. ‘I’m sorry. I punched th
e wrong son.’
Declan Russell pretended not to hear that. ‘I’ll have to ring Peter. For Christ’s sake, keep this quiet until you decide what you’re going to do with her.’ He sat down heavily on the sofa, his legs spread wide. He was a man who was used to being in charge.
Alan was fuming, at me and at Harry’s dad. He went to the drinks cupboard, which was rarely opened, and retrieved a bottle of whiskey, which I think had been there since the day I arrived. Alan was a teetotaller. He didn’t offer a glass to Mr Russell but sat in the armchair and poured himself a large one. They both turned to stare at me, unsympathetic to my weeping.
‘So were you playing the two brothers off each other? Are you mad or something?’ Alan asked me.
I found my voice and addressed Harry’s dad. ‘It was in the summer, when I was working in your hotel, Mr Russell. Peter came to give me my Leaving Cert results and I was upset, and we –’
‘Jesus Christ! I don’t want any details. Was it only the one time?’
I looked to the floor.
Alan ran his hand through his thin grey hair.
Mr Russell spoke. ‘Leave it be now, Alan. I’ll talk to Peter. He’ll tell the truth, one way or another. There’s no point going on with this unless …’ He turned to look at me. ‘Were there others?’
‘What … what do you mean?’
‘Apparently, you slept with my two sons. What about their cousins, or their friends?’
‘No!’ I nearly shouted it, I was so horrified by the question.
‘Well, you couldn’t blame us for wondering.’
Mr Russell left and Alan told me to get out of his sight. I went to my room and lay on the bed, in fear for my future, listening to the sounds of Alan and Moira’s distress downstairs. They were shouting, blaming each other. I had never heard either of them raise their voices before. Fighting over me. It shouldn’t have been, but it was oddly exciting. Comforting, even. It reminded me of being a child again. On Inishcrann.
I was left alone in my room, and in the middle of the night I snuck quietly down the stairs to find some bread and cheese. I had not eaten properly in a few days and pregnancy made me hungry.
At the kitchen table I found Moira in her dressing gown, nursing a cup of tea. She didn’t look at me and I ignored her as I found what I needed. When I had made a sandwich, I sat at the table opposite her. We could not avoid each other for ever.
‘All we ever wanted was a baby, you know, but I couldn’t have one, and so after years of disappointments we found you and adopted you. Do you have any idea how this makes me feel? How could you do it to us, child? How could you do it to yourself? And with the Russells, of all people!’
I was so sick of being judged and of their sanctimonious behaviour. Hypocritical too. They wanted a baby, and now I was having one. I could give it to them to raise. It was the obvious solution. I could guilt them into it.
‘Alan told the Russells that I was adopted. I guess you never felt like I was yours. I know you’ll want me to leave soon. Let me know when, so that I can begin to make plans.’ I sounded braver than I felt.
‘Plans? You must know what will happen to you now.’ Her voice rose and wavered. ‘Alan is heartbroken, as you might imagine. You might as well have kicked him in the head for the pain he’s in. The Russells.’
‘Why are you so … what is it about the Russells?’
She rose and retrieved the photograph of Alan’s father from the mantelpiece. A shabby-looking man pushing a dustcart. She stabbed her finger at the picture. ‘Alan’s father was the Russells’ gardener. They were the ones who took that photograph. There was a maid in their house at the time, a young girl, fifteen or sixteen. She was pregnant but nobody knew. She was found dead in a field after trying to give birth on her own. The baby died too. They fired Alan’s father the next day, to give everyone the impression that he was the one who’d got her in the family way. The poor man never got a day’s work after that. To his dying day, he said it was Declan Russell, Harry’s dad, who got the girl pregnant. Declan was probably eighteen or nineteen at the time. Alan’s father was a married man in his forties. Nobody could prove anything, but Alan’s family was shamed afterwards.
‘Alan was a young man at the time. His mother never came to terms with it all, but it seemed like she and Alan were the only ones in the town who believed his father. The Russells had lawyers from Galway threaten him to keep his mouth shut, saying he’d be sued. It was just one of those situations where nobody could prove anything, and the sacking of Alan’s father was deliberate. He got the blame. He hadn’t even known the girl’s name until she was dead. His reputation was ruined. My family weren’t snobs at all. They didn’t care that Alan didn’t have a university education or that his family didn’t own a business, but they cared that he might be the son of a man who got that young girl pregnant. I fought them to marry him, but they never quite accepted him. Poor Alan.’
Layer upon layer of mistrust was rising to the surface all over again. Maybe Alan’s father had got the girl pregnant. Maybe Mr Russell was completely innocent. People will lie about anything to get themselves out of trouble. I do.
‘Alan didn’t want you anywhere near the Russells, but I persuaded him to let the past be the past. He’s angry with you now, and you can’t blame him. You’ve lived in this house for eight years, and we did everything we could to make it your home and to make you part of our family, but always … always, there has been this … distance, like you don’t want to get close. We kept telling ourselves that once you learned to trust us it would all come right, but you never wanted us as your family. Your attitude never changed. We felt it, but we accepted it, and loved you anyway. We still do, and when all this is settled we’ll find our way again. But now we’re tangled with the Russells in the worst way possible. What possessed you? The two brothers? Was it some kind of game?’
This is the point where I was supposed to break down and beg forgiveness and explain that I didn’t know what I was doing and that I loved Moira and Alan with all my heart. Instead, I thought about Alan’s pathetic family story and compared it to my own. His story was hardly a tragedy when you put it beside mine. I finished my sandwich in silence and went back to bed.
I got up early the next morning and slipped out of the house, as soon as I heard Alan go off on his postal round. I hadn’t dared to ring the Russells’ home, but I wanted to talk to Harry. I knew he loved me and I thought I might be able to talk him around, to convince him that we could still be a couple. I waited outside the hotel’s side door for him to arrive. A few of my old pals greeted me on their way in. ‘What are you doing back here? I thought you were off in Ballina? Couldn’t keep away from Harry, eh?’
I nodded and smiled, relieved that word had not spread of my predicament and the scandal around it. I waited twenty minutes and then saw his father approach. Mr Russell grabbed me roughly by the arm and marched me into the hotel, past reception and into his office, smiling and waving hello at the girls as he went.
‘Sit down,’ he growled, as the door closed behind me.
I had never been in this office before. It was neat, a big mahogany desk with an old-fashioned lamp with a green glass shade perched on one corner, files of paperwork, a blotter and a container for pens and pencils and an inkwell.
‘You don’t want to have this baby, do you?’
I didn’t see that I had any choice in the matter.
‘It can be arranged. An abortion. I’d pay, of course, and it’s expensive. You don’t even have to pay me back. All over and done with, on one condition.’
He looked at me, waiting for me to ask what the condition was. I couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. Two months previously, when I didn’t know I was pregnant, nearly 70 per cent of the population had voted to keep abortion illegal in a referendum. I hadn’t gone to the trouble of voting, even though I was old enough, because I never thought it was something that would affect me, but the anti-abortion campaign had been strong in Westport all summe
r long and there had been parades. Harry and I had marched together.
‘Isn’t that against the law?’
‘Yes, in this country. But not in England. There is a clinic in Liverpool, like a hospital. All neat and clean. You could go over on the ferry, but you’d have to go this week.’
I thought of all the horrific stories I had heard about women dying in alleyways, having been dumped by abortionists. I thought about my own efforts with the gin and hot baths and my lack of guilt about it. Mr Russell clicked his fingers impatiently in front of my face.
‘Or would you rather go to a mother and baby home, work like a dog in the convent laundry until they decide when to release you? Would you prefer that?’
‘What did Peter say?’
‘Never mind about Peter.’ Obviously, Peter had admitted the truth. ‘Never mind about Harry either. I don’t want to hear my boys’ names out of your mouth ever again. I am offering you a gift, an opportunity. You can start again, over there. In Liverpool.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You go to Liverpool, have an abortion and never come back. That’s the condition. I was given an address of a clinic that will do the procedure. Nobody will ever know. You just … disappear and send a nice letter back to your … to Alan and Moira, telling them that you’re safe and that you’ve decided to make a new life for yourself. When the … baby would have been due, you can send them another letter, tell them you’ve had it adopted, and then you can do what you like, as long as you don’t do it in Westport. Nobody will know, not my wife, my sons, your friends. It will be our secret, yours and mine.’
I eyeballed him. I was another of his dirty little secrets. He had used the services of an abortion clinic before. If I had had my doubts about Moira’s story of him fathering the baby of the dead servant girl, I had no doubts now. None whatsoever. ‘I suppose it’s better than dying in a field giving birth.’
He reached across the table and struck me hard across the head. The shock was immediate.
‘You can let me know your decision by tomorrow morning. Do not attempt to contact either of my sons. Now, get out.’