Francis and Kate returned to the lane as husband and wife.
Kate was in her seventh month of pregnancy when Francis came home one night later than usual and deeply troubled. While in the bank taking care of his uncle’s business, Francis made a devastating discovery. He had overhead Harry Browne brag that he, a man about town and smooth-talking womanizer, had gotten Kate pregnant. Francis hastily left the bank for he could not bear to hear more.
Francis realized that Kate met him in The Mouse That Roared just a few nights after the supposed encounter with Browne. Within three weeks she had accepted Francis’ offer to drive her to her flat after she had claimed she had missed the last bus. He spent the night there. Would she have spoken to him in the Mouse that night if she were not pregnant? Francis doubted it. It wasn’t me she wanted but a name for the child. Now that she had that, have I served my usefulness? Is all else that happened between us a lie?
Francis remembered the day he opened his cottage door and found her standing there. He was afraid to reach out and touch her as though in doing so, he might find she was an illusion, a figment of his imagination. She could have made a better marriage under more acceptable circumstances. Why Harry Browne? What attracted her to slime like Browne? Why could she not have told me the truth? I would have married her and accepted the child as my own. Yet she chose to deceive me, made a mockery of love and trust. Did she ever love me? Was there any truth in anything she said or was it all a lie?
Francis didn’t raise his voice, but Kate felt the depth of his anger in the low guttural sound that emerged from him and the look of hurt and betrayal in his eyes. True to his nature, he uttered the bare minimum of words necessary to convey to her what he had discovered.
Kate, on being confronted with this horror from the past, was without words. In her happiness with Francis, she had put her encounter with Harry Browne out of her mind in the hope that it would leave her life forever. She was devastated by this turn of events. She had never intended to hurt Francis. All she had wanted was to protect the child and give it a father. Everything had come together so beautifully only to split wide apart, like a dropped melon. She had not expected to fall in love with Francis, but she had been willing to be a good wife to him no matter what course life would take. On finding Francis loved her, too, she had felt heaven blessed.
As he packed a borrowed suitcase, she tried to tell him how sorry she was, explaining that her thoughts at that time had been for the child she carried. She revealed that in the time they had been together, she had fallen in love with him. Unfortunately, she was unable to convince him. After throwing some things into the case, he left the house; he did not say “goodbye.”
For a moment she stood dazed, then collected herself and hurried down the lane after him, grabbing his arm to stop him, trying to persuade him to stay. But all she could do was to slow him down for a moment. He took two twenty-pound notes from his pocket and thrust them at her.
“Please don’t leave,” she begged. “I love you. I’m truly sorry. Can we discuss this?” She was now trotting beside him to keep pace with his large strides. Defeated she stopped, and in one last attempt called to him, “Will you return?” He did not answer, but continued down the lane not looking back even as he turned the corner.
For several moments, Kate stared at the space where Francis had been before he turned the corner and walked out of her life. Slowly she walked back to the cottage remembering the first time she walked up the lane and Francis had opened the cottage door and invited her in.
To her embarrassment she discovered, in the quiver of a curtain, that the lane people, who lived very private lives, had looked out from their windows at what had taken place. As she entered the cottage, she closed the door behind her, closing herself off from curious eyes. For three days, or was it four, or perhaps as many as five, she remained in the cottage, too disheartened to function.
Emerging from bed to go up the lane one night, she caught a glimpse of herself in Francis’ shaving mirror. She was horrified by her appearance, unwashed face surrounded by tangled hair, still wearing the dress she had worn when pleading with Francis as he strode down the lane.
Suddenly, the realization that she had eaten nothing but tea and bread in three days and had felt no hunger set off an alarm within her. Here I am, she thought, wallowing in self-pity and neglecting to eat properly while carrying my baby. Francis’ leaving had been a terrible blow.
She thought, just as I fell in love with him, he left. I should have known that in a small place like this secrets fly on the wind and land on doorsteps. Our doorstep! Francis could have thrown me out of the cottage knowing this was Harry’s child that I’m carrying. He would have had every right to do so, but he is too decent to do that. I did him a dreadful wrong. Ah Francis, how I wish I didn’t make such a disaster of your life as well as mine.
Pulling herself together, she wondered where she had put the money Francis had given her. After looking on the table, chairs, and underneath them without finding it, she brought the candle over to the fireplace and found the pound notes there on the floor by the rocking chair. Patting her stomach, she said aloud, “You need food to grow on.” She went to bed that evening with something she thought had abandoned her, a small spark of hope.
After breakfast the following morning, Kate, with a towel on her arm, walked to the shower. It was hardly necessary to pull the water handle, for a steady rain began just as she had stepped into the stall. After soaping herself, she turned her face upwards to the falling rain. It flowed down upon her like a sacred stream from the heavens, cleansing her body and refreshing her soul.
Kate had many things to do before the baby arrived. She put a full kettle of water on to heat. Going into the yard, she took down the washtub from its nail in the shed and placed it on a bench. The rain had stopped, and the sun was now shining brightly in the sky. Gathering her clothing, the bed linens and towels and the shirts Francis had left behind, she brought them into the yard. Then, taking the kettle of hot water, she filled the washtub and proceeded to wash the clothes. She would wear Francis’ shirts for the remainder of her pregnancy, since every piece of clothing she owned was too tight a fit. Should Francis not return by the time the baby was ready to enter school, she would cut down his shirts to make the child shirts or dresses.
At mid-morning with a full line of clothes hanging from the line, Kate refilled the kettle and put it on the flame. Then she removed all the clutter and knick knacks from the top of the bureau, sideboard, and shelves. Francis had said she could fix the place as she deemed fit, but she had not wanted to remove what she surmised to be his mother’s treasures. Kate picked up a small Dutch boy in blue and white delft, an import from Holland. Examining it closer she found it had had an accident, for the head had been glued back onto the body. Did Francis play with it as a child?
From a small postage card photograph, an attractive young couple smiled out at Kate from over the years. It must have been taken while they were on their honeymoon; people in those days did not travel unless on their honeymoon or immigrating. In the left hand corner of the photograph, in faded, small, neat handwriting were the words “The Isle of Man” and a date. It was, she assumed, their first time off Irish soil. They went from one small island to a smaller island with much less to offer. A weekend on an island close by was an adventure for them. She believed from the family resemblance they must be Francis’ parents. Since it was taken long before color photography, Kate could only wonder from which of his parents Francis inherited his red hair.
A baby photograph of Francis and one taken in his first Communion suit; one of Francis, at about eight years old, as he rode a horse on Ned and Mary’s farm. All photographs stood in the same spot his mother had left them many years ago. On another shelf was a photograph of Francis as he stood between his parents and Mary and Ned after being confirmed. One showed Francis fishing with his father and Ned. Behind an unused dusty china teapot was a family photograph taken at Christmastime at th
e farm with his parents and aunt and uncle. She would clean and display these photographs.
All but one religious statue she would pack in a cardboard box that she found in the bedroom, along with leprechauns; cups and saucers all stating where people had gone; good-luck charms; vases too small for any but a single small flower; decorated plates which were not meant to be eaten off; small hand-painted boxes; figurines received from people from various places in Ireland they had visited; and various other objects with no purpose other than to be displayed.
Cleaning off all surfaces and removing all the books from the shelves and floor of the bedroom, she stacked them on the bed to be sorted later. As the kettle came to a boil, Kate swept every nook and cranny of the house and then scrubbed the floors. It was past three o’clock by the time she finished. Leaving the back door to the yard open in order to dry the floors, she stood for a moment looking into the cottage, now with years of grime and neglect removed, and smiled. Yes, she believed, it was a quaint and loveable home. Tomorrow she would tackle the yard and the shed.
After supper, while she browsed through the pile of books, she selected Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago. She read late into the night until the candle had burned down. Before falling asleep, her last conscious thoughts were of love and betrayal.
Standing in the yard the next morning she decided that it was not a fit place for a child to play, and set about cleaning out the shed. She removed old bicycle tubes; bald tires; glass jars caked with dirt; rusting nails, a hammer, a watering can; a kitchen chair with one leg missing; rusting pieces of metal; parts of something unknown; and an old mason hot-water bottle which she checked for soundness. Finding it did indeed have a leak; she discarded it into the pile of rubbish she planned to bring down the lane to the street below on the day the rubbish collectors made their rounds.
Discovering just a half-full bin of turf, which wouldn’t last the winter, she threw the three-legged chair on top of the turf for firewood. Other than the turf, all that now remained in the shed was the hammer and the watering can.
Examining all the flowerpots scattered around the yard, she discarded all the broken ones. She washed all those in good condition and placed them in the shed.
When all the rubbish was removed, she swept and washed down the yard. Then she showered and prepared dinner.
As she started to cook, she noticed an envelope on the floor underneath the mail slot. She picked it up. It was addressed to Francis Egan and by its envelope she surmised it was some official notice or a bill. Should she bring it to him at the farm? She knew the location, but not the address. The mailman would, in all likelihood, deliver it if she readdressed it to “Egan’s Farm, Swords.” That might be risky if this were an important document, she realized, and so she opened the piece of mail. It was a rates bill. She hadn’t thought about taxes! The tax on the cottage was more than the remaining balance in her bank account. Could Francis be expected to pay the taxes on the cottage in which he no longer lived? Was it now her liability?
The following day, Kate pondered the possibilities that might be available to her as she ironed. The aroma of the lamb and vegetables as they simmered on the stove filled the cottage. It was such a delicious and comforting smell; it made Kate temporarily forget about upcoming expenses. She had a choice of going to the Charity Ward to have the baby, or delivering it in the cottage. Being familiar with the Charity Ward and its unfortunate patients, she decided on the latter.
She would get in touch with her brother Kieran, the one family member, she believed, most likely to be sympathetic to her, but wondered how she could do that without revealing her dilemma. Perhaps she could tell him she wanted to enroll at University for another degree and needed money to live on. Could she draw on her inheritance for such a purpose?
Would another lie matter? Her whole life, from her meeting with Francis onwards, was a lie. That one lie gave birth to many lies. She had always thought of herself as an honest person. Then she got pregnant, and lies attached themselves to her like flies on flypaper.
She might be able to get a position as a night nurse when the baby was several months old, if she could hire someone in the lane to watch him during the night. That, however, was more than half a year away. How could she provide for the baby and herself in the interim?
After finishing the ironing, she stood the iron in the yard to cool off, and coming back into the cottage, she heard a knock on the door. No neighbors, actually nobody at all, had ever come knocking on her door during her stay in the cottage.
Don’t get your hopes up. Francis isn’t coming back, and if it were he at the door, he’d have no need to knock; he has a key. She would like to show him how nice the cottage looked. Would he care?
Opening the door, she was surprised and overjoyed to see her cousin standing there.
“Sheila!”
“This is a damn hard place to find,” Sheila declared as she stepped into the cottage and embraced Kate. For a moment Kate could do nothing but smile in happiness and hold onto her cousin’s embrace.
“Does this place reappear every hundred years?”
“Not that I know of,” Kate laughed, and the sound of her laughter was like a long lost friend returning. “This is Ireland, not Scotland. How did you find me?”
“In trying to locate you, I heard from someone who knew Harry Browne, and he said you were one of Harry’s ex-girlfriends. I explained that you were my cousin. He said you had picked up with Francis Egan, and although he didn’t know where Egan lived, he knew he worked on a farm in Swords. Well, I found the Egan farm, introduced myself to his aunt, and waited in her kitchen until Francis had finished his chores. She is a sweet lady, who insisted on making tea and serving some of the most delicious homemade bread and cake imaginable. Egan certainly is the silent type, but otherwise quite pleasant and very handsome, I might add. He, of course, gave me directions, and here I am.”
“You’re so resourceful.”
“The reason I’m here is because I’m running away.”
“Sheila, do be serious,” Kate pleaded through her laughter.
“Well, that’s what my mother calls it. She said, in her day, nice girls didn’t leave home until they married.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just across the pond, but to my mother it might as well be Timbuktu.”
“England,” Kate gasped in horror. “It might as well be Australia, for I’ll not be able to visit you.”
“We’ll keep in touch. I promise. My mother has told me in full the gory details of Jack the Ripper. She sees danger lurking in every street and lane in London. Mom’s convinced England is filled with Ripper types. Mom asks, how can it be otherwise? Not only for those who were a part of the mayhem of fighting in the war, but for those huddled on the underground platforms, and in air raid shelters living in fear while bombs hailed down on them each night, and wondering if they’d get out alive or take a direct hit and be buried alive under the rubble. It was enough to drive them crazy, Mom said, and crazy they were.”
“Might she be happier if you went to America?”
“Mom doesn’t have a positive view of American men either. She remembers what the English soldiers said of the Americans in uniform during the war. ‘They were oversexed, overpaid, and over here.’”
“Mom recalled,” Sheila continued, “the tales that came from America as told by English war brides. There was a soldier who said he was in the newspaper business, and his war bride found he sold newspapers from an stand by a subway station. And another who said he was in the dairy business who actually went from street to street selling ice cream. Then there were the horror stories of cultural difference, in-law problems, and homesickness. Of course, it was the most bizarre cases that made the headlines. Not much was told of those who settled down and were happy.”
“I left a message with your mother, and I didn’t know if you had deciphered it.”
“Yes, indeed, after Mom finally remembered to give it to me! Grandfather
’s death was a terrible blow to her.”
“Aunt Jenny didn’t recognize my voice.”
“I usually tell her ahead of time that I’ll be phoning her at a certain time, and when I do, she’ll ask, ‘Is this Sheila?’ Of course, she rarely answers the damn thing. Now tell me, how come you’re living in Francis Egan’s place?”
“It’s a long horrible story. I’ll put on the kettle, and then tell you the whole sorry mess, or would you like some stew?”
“Do you have enough?”
“Yes, plenty, but there’s not much lamb in it,” Kate answered, taking two bowls off the shelf and filling them with stew. “You’ll find spoons in the drawer.”
“Where’s the sink? I need to wash my hands.”
“No running water. Just pour some water from the pitcher into the basin.”
“Good God, this is primitive. I can’t believe that there are still places like this in Dublin. Where are the toilet facilities?”
“At the far end of the lane in front of the shower stalls.”
“Ugh, outdoor showers in winter!”
“Well, for sixpence, a warm shower, plus soap and a towel is provided at the Tara Street bath house. Of course, it’s a men’s facility. There isn’t such a place for women.”
“Aw, just like the street toilets, which are only for men.”
“It’s not only in Ireland, Sheila. It’s like that all over Europe, well in France and England for sure.”
“Do you think that’s the way it is in America?”
“I have no idea. That matter never came up in Little Women or Gone with the Wind or any other books about America that I’ve read,” Kate laughed.
The Lane Page 3