Another Kind of Life (31 page)

He kept both hands on her shoulders, steadying her.

‘My father needs me to go back to Paris tonight, on the late train. He got a telegram today – one of the companies is in serious trouble. The manager he trusted most has, apparently,
had his hand in the till for some time.’

May began to feel weak; all the blood seemed to drain from the top of her head, making her feel dizzy. She felt all her energy and optimism sink to her feet, which suddenly became leaden. At the
same time, she knew. Something more than business was wrong. Philippe was preoccupied, distracted, already miles away from her.

‘I must go – he has no one else he can trust. Just hold tight, I’ll be back in a few days, a week at the most.’

‘Have you told him – about us?’

Philippe shook his head.

‘It’s not the right time – we must wait for a better moment.’

May nodded. She allowed him to hold her close again, briefly.

‘You must go back now, before anyone sees you. The carriage will be waiting to take me to the station.’

‘Yes.’

He looked straight at her.

‘You must trust me, May. Give me time to resolve this crisis for him – then he will be ready to accept you, to accept
us
.’

She tried to smile at him, but she knew. Somehow, this was the beginning of the end. She sensed Madame’s hand in this.

‘Go now,’ he said, kissing her. ‘I love you.’

She made her way back through the gardens, keeping to the now deepening shadows. It was impossible to believe that this was the same evening, that she was the same person as moments before. What
had seemed to her then a life filled with joy and light now stretched before her as some sort of frozen wasteland. She would not cry, not yet, not until she was safely inside her own room.

It was impossible to crush the intuition that someone was watching her from some window, some hidden vantage point. The silences, the hostility, the disapproval of recent days and weeks all came
into focus. They knew, and she would be punished.

M
ARY
STEPPED
OFF
the train in Holywood and followed the stream of people making their way out of the
station. She tried to remember Miss Mulqueen’s directions. She didn’t want to ask anybody, didn’t want to show her hand before she had to. She followed the most likely looking
group of women up Station Hill towards what appeared to be the main street. She bent her head and battled against the strong wind. At one point, she had to hold on to her hat with both hands. She
turned her back for a moment, just to draw breath. The sea was a dark, pewter-toned mass, frilled with vigorous white horses. Mary decided she liked the salty tang; this was the sort of air that
would have done Cecilia good, the sort of air that had the trains to Holywood and Bangor crowded every weekend in summer. She just wished it had been a little less hearty today.

Once she reached the junction at the top of the hill, she pulled the piece of paper Miss Mulqueen had given her out of the pocket of her coat. She turned left and walked briskly down High
Street, through the town and past the maypole, its tattered flag snapping uselessly at the gusting wind. She could already see the squat tower of the Priory ahead of her. She began to feel nervous
again. Stewarts Place, Miss Mulqueen had said, just before the old Priory, on the left-hand side of the street.

Mary consulted her scrap of paper again. She counted the letters, trying to match them quickly to the street sign before anyone could see what she was doing. The sense of relief was enormous;
she was here. She hadn’t had to ask anyone for help. She never forgot her way: one visit and the streets were engraved for ever on her memory. All she needed was to get there safely, just the
once. It seemed to her that one of the sharper, more observant bits of her mind made up for the part that had never been properly taught how to read. Next time, she thought, she would walk here
with confidence, keeping her head held high: if there was to be a next time.

She pushed open the wrought-iron gate and began to make her way down the garden path towards the front door. She had a sudden moment of blank panic: what was this woman’s name? Miss
Mulqueen had told her, of that she was sure, but she had no memory of it, no sound to remember, nothing. She’d just have to keep her head, she decided firmly, and try and get by without it.
She consulted the scrap of paper again, uselessly. Even if Miss Mulqueen had written it for her, she had nothing to match it up to, no visible outward sign to tell her she was right or wrong. She
sighed, spoke silently to herself.
Ye’d better help me here, Cecilia – I haven’t your head for the readin’
.

The number twelve was in tarnished brass, just to the left of the door. It had to be a good omen, she decided. Number twelve Fortwilliam Park had been where she had learned to breathe again, to
gather her forces and eventually, to survive. Number twelve Stewarts Place was going to be good to her, she was sure of it. It had to be more than a coincidence that the numbers of both houses were
the same. Quickly, she took in all the telling details before her. She wanted to see affluence with just the right amount of neglect. The front door was wood-grained and in good condition, but the
fanlight and the stained-glass panels hadn’t seen soap and water for some time. The black and red diamond-patterned tiles of the porch could do with a good scrubbing, too. This looked
hopeful: a young Dublin bride with no notion of how to keep house. Mary’s spirits began to rise. She might indeed be wanted here; this could be her chance to get right out of Belfast
altogether and into a town like this: bright, prosperous, with all the healthy benefits of sea air. She blessed herself furtively before pressing the front doorbell.

The sound of the doorbell was sudden and somehow shocking in the empty house. Hannah was becoming used to the map of each of her days now: the smooth terrain of the mornings,
followed by the bumpier ground of afternoon visits, and finally the calm plateaux of evening.

Constance MacBride had taken to arriving most afternoons now, with several other imperious elderly ladies in tow. Hannah was convinced that the novelty of undertaking a journey some four miles
north of Belfast and the excellence of the sea air were more of a draw than the mildly intriguing presence of a Dublin daughter-in-law. Nevertheless, Constance MacBride kept arriving with grim
predictability, her presence an annoyance to Betty, who liked to spend her afternoons snoozing by the fire in the kitchen with an enormous tabby cat curled on her lap. Hannah realized quite quickly
that her mother-in-law enjoyed fussing around her, unable to conceal her joy at the prospect of her first grandchild.

Hannah was more than relieved when the elderly ladies eventually departed, full of tea and good humour, and she could subside gratefully into the tranquillity of evening, with her piano, her
sunlit garden and her new husband, surrounded by the ever-present aroma of pipe-tobacco. She was becoming accustomed now to having her hours measured out, to knowing what each day was likely to
bring her. At first, she had been surprised that she never felt bored. She had expected to miss the constant companionship of her two sisters; she feared the emptiness of her own company. Instead,
she welcomed the uncluttered times of each day, times which she could fill with music and the delightful anticipation of the arrival of her first baby.

And so the early call to her door this morning startled her. She was not expecting any visitor – in fact, she was on her way out to the post office as a diversion, an escape from the
constant complaints issuing from the kitchen.

She turned away from the mirror and made her way to the top of the stairs, hat still in hand. Betty was quite deaf, and may not have heard the single peal. She was just about to descend the last
flight when she saw the elderly woman open the front door. She had a moment’s pity for the grey, stooped figure whose feet seemed daily more reluctant to carry her around.

There was a young, slightly windswept woman standing in the porch. Hannah hurried down the last few steps when she heard the brusque, challenging tone.

‘Betty?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Betty simply turned and made her way back down the hallway. She didn’t even glare in Hannah’s direction this time. Hannah sighed to herself. Charles had promised her that much, and
he had been right – Betty’s main virtue was her unquestioning obedience.

This woman was very young, Mary thought, good-looking, with abundant fair hair piled softly on top of her head. She held a wide-brimmed hat in one hand, a long silver pin in
the other. What
was
her name? Mary felt the back of her neck prickle with embarrassment: not only could she not greet the woman properly, she had also interrupted her preparations for going
out. She decided to curtsy, briefly.

‘Mary McCurry, ma’am. Miss Mulqueen sent me.’

‘Oh – yes, please – come in.’

Mary was intrigued by the woman’s accent. It was one she had not heard before, and so she accepted its strangeness. It was the faint, smoky echo of Belfast that puzzled her.

The lady of the house was about to lead the way back into the hallway when a sudden gust of wind blew the front door almost closed. She lurched forward to stop it with both hands before it
clicked to, and let go of her hat and hatpin at the same time. Mary wasn’t quick enough. The pin tinkled on to the tiles below and the large hat cartwheeled down the garden path, staggered
drunkenly to the right, and took off down High Street. Occasionally, it paused in the middle of the road before becoming filled with air and taking flight again. Mary followed, flooded with a
strong, superstitious conviction. If she managed to retrieve this hat, then the position had to be hers. If she lost it, or gave up halfway, the young woman she had just met would take that as a
sign of her character: lacking in determination, unreliable.

She held her skirts well above her ankles as she ran, but she didn’t care. Nobody around her would be interested in her ankles, and anyway she wore stout, unromantic boots, worth their
salt for running up and down endless staircases, not for catching the eye of a passing man. She could never be accused of immodesty. One final burst of speed and she managed to put the toe of her
right boot on the outer brim of the lady’s rather fine hat. It looked a little sad now, though, its feathers badly ruffled, its ribbons dampened by the misting, freezing rain which had
started to fall, its drops transformed into fine needles in the strong wind.

Triumphantly, she picked it up, brushed the grainy bits of dirt from its surface, and held it firmly, like an offering, in both hands. When she got back to Stewarts Place, the young woman was
still standing in the doorway, her eyes and cheeks bright with laughter. Mary smiled, too. She could see that the woman’s laughter was kind – one that enjoyed the fun with you, rather
than against you. Something in the way she now stood made Mary look more closely, discreetly, just for an instant. There was a definite swell under the front of her dress, a gentle undulation that
Mary might never have seen if the young woman had not, for that split second, turned sideways. Mary felt suddenly elated. This woman needed her: it was obvious. If she couldn’t keep her tiles
clean, then how on earth would she ever be able to look after a baby on her own?

The violent gust of wind which suddenly wrenched the open door from her grasp took Hannah completely by surprise. She lunged forward, trying to catch it before it slammed shut.
She had no choice: she let go of her hat and hatpin, expecting both of them to land safely at her feet in the porch. Instead, her hat seemed to become possessed of a mind of its own. With some
initial difficulty in finding its balance, it took sudden, gleeful flight and lurched rapidly all the way down the garden path, taking to the air as soon as it reached the main road outside. All
Hannah could manage was a surprised ‘Oh!’ She was disappointed – she had really liked that hat. She was just about to say something when, without a word, the young woman in the
workday boots literally took off after it, chasing the flimsy mix of straw and ribbons for all she was worth, driving rain and strong winds notwithstanding.

Hannah wanted to call out after her, to get her to stop. She cut a most comical figure – holding on to her skirts, sticking out first one foot, then the other, as though dancing to some
mad tune inside her head. She tried again and again to trap the unruly hat, only to be defeated as it took flight again, feathers fluttering everywhere like small, demented birds – and off
she went once more in apparently useless pursuit.

Hannah couldn’t help laughing. Then, to her surprise, she saw the girl stop suddenly, her foot planted solidly beneath her. She bent down, and there was something triumphant about her as
she stood upright, the hat held firmly now between her two hands. Hannah thought she could see her grinning to herself. At that moment, she liked her immensely. She didn’t care what secrets
Miss Mulqueen’s character reference might reveal, she would have this girl in her house. Anybody that determined deserved a chance. It took only a few moments for the young woman to arrive,
breathless, at Hannah’s side, holding out the hat like some sort of tattered peace-offering.

‘Come in, please, and tell me your name again. Thank you so much for bringing me back my hat.’

Mary followed her into the drawing room. She sat on the most uncomfortable chair she could find, while the young woman took the sofa, facing her unexpected visitor.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’

‘No, thank you, ma’am,’ said Mary, quickly. She didn’t want to endure Betty’s baleful glare for a second time. She would put up with being thirsty, as long as she
could get this over with.

‘My name’s Mary, ma’am, Mary McCurry. I understand you might be lookin’ for someone, to help about the house, like.’

Nervously, she pulled Miss Mulqueen’s letter from the pocket of her coat. Abruptly, she stretched out her hand to the young woman who accepted the envelope, but didn’t open it.
Instead, she smiled across at Mary.