Cathy Kelly 3-book Bundle (127 page)

My dearest Eleanor, I thought of not writing this. I thought I’d cheat death by not telling you about it. A mother’s foolishness, is all you could call it. I’ve told you about food and life. Part of the circle of life is death. You were too young when your father died. Thank the Lord you were spared the pain of it. We fought the pain, Agnes and I. We pushed it away from you and took it ourselves. You’ll know what I mean when you have a child of your own. You will fight to spare them pain.

I’d lie in bed at night and cry, but only when you slept. Daddy was happy, we told you. He’s with God and the angels, and his own Mammy and Daddy, and the baby his mammy had that died.

But I missed him, Eleanor. Without Joe, there was no sunlight in my day.

I would remember all his kindnesses, how he used to
make me laugh, the breadth of his shoulders beside me in the bed. When he was gone, nobody would ever do any of that for me again.

But I survived. I survived, you survived and Agnes survived. We made it across the Atlantic on the boat, we got through Ellis Island, we survived a first year with your Uncle Dennis when I was sure we’d starve or freeze or both. Life will find a way, as your grandfather used to say. Don’t forget that. Life will find a way.

Eleanor laid down the book calmly. In the morning, she’d lend it to Megan. She’d read enough herself for the moment. Tomorrow, she’d phone New York to speak to Naomi. It was time she went home.

In Kilmoney, the only reunions we were used to were ones in the big house, when the Captain and Mrs Fitzmaurice had guests to stay from the Captain’s time in India. Agnes would be plain exhausted from the preparations and she said Mrs Fitzmaurice wasn’t much better.

There were many servants in India, it seemed, and no matter how many there were in the house in Kilmoney, it wouldn’t impress the old India hands who weren’t used to so much as moving an inch to pick up their own teacup.

The weather was a problem too. The house was always too cold for those used to the Indian sun, and Agnes would have to air every blanket in the premises to keep them all warm at night.

In New York, we had reunions too but they were different, I can tell you. After the first year we spent in the boarding house on Lennox Avenue, we’d made good friends of the O’Dohertys, the Koufonicolas and the McCloskeys. When we moved down the street to the apartment with the fire escape above Dimarco’s Restaurant, we kept in touch with the other families.
Every year, we’d meet up on Easter Sunday for a party and in the early years, oh my, did we party.

Mr Dimarco would say it was like St Patrick’s Day all over again, but there was no drunkenness at our reunions.

‘My sister and I keep a sober house, Mr Dimarco,’ Agnes would tell him primly.

We’d laugh when she got upstairs because Agnes liked the odd tipple herself, but just the one. We didn’t need whiskey to celebrate. I’d cook something Greek with Vania Koufonicola, like Avgolemono. It’s a chicken soup with lemon and eggs. You make a stock from poaching a whole chicken with onion, celery, carrots, parsley and peppercorns. When the meat is falling off the bones, remove the chicken, strain the poaching liquid and cook this with several cups of rice. At the end, whisk up the eggs, add the juice of one or two lemons, and slowly add your poaching liquid so the eggs don’t scramble. Finally heat it all up, add some shredded chicken and eat. Anna McCloskey would bring proper shortbread biscuits, the way her mother used to make them.

By the end of the day, we’d sit on the fire escape and drink to our homelands. There might be a few tears, but not many. We were happy in those years.

Geraldine’s moving back home was on a par with a European principality moving court.

It all had to be done on a certain day, in a certain way, and the furniture in Geraldine’s bedroom in her house in Howth had to be rearranged to her satisfaction.

Rae thought that if only there were ladies in waiting and a few minstrels in the wings, it would be perfect.

‘I like having the bed with the sunlight coming in from
the side,’ Geraldine told Will with a certain petulance. ‘It’s so gorgeous in your house in Golden Square, the sun coming in on top of you in the morning, I’d like it like that all the time.’

It was five in the afternoon when the move finally took place, and Will shifted the furniture while Geraldine sat on a chair in duchess mode and directed operations. Downstairs, Rae organised flowers: ‘I must have flowers,’ Geraldine insisted. ‘The house will seem so lonely now I’m back on my own.’

Rae had dutifully bought armfuls of flowers that morning at the Smithfield market and was now shoving them pell-mell into Geraldine’s precious Waterford crystal vases. She simply wanted to be out of there because Anton was coming home for the weekend.

‘We have to tell him,’ Will had said, and Rae loved the way he said ‘
we
’. It was no longer her secret: it was his too.

‘He’ll be fine with it,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You know Anton. He takes everything in his stride, love.’

Still, Rae worried. Taking everything in his stride was one thing when it came to dodgy apartments, difficult college assignments, or low pay in his first job. It was another thing entirely when it came to the words: ‘You have a sister – well, a half-sister, if you want to be pedantic. I had a baby when I was sixteen and I gave her up for adoption.’

All through his childhood, Will and Rae had drummed into their son the concept that telling the truth was important, even if it meant you got into trouble.

What she had to tell him would negate the effect of all of that. Would he hate her for it?

Upstairs, Geraldine wasn’t happy with the arrangement of her bedroom.

‘Rae, can you look at this and tell me what you think?’ she roared.

Rae stomped upstairs. She wanted to get home quickly and tell Anton. She didn’t want to be here. But when she saw Geraldine sitting on her chair, looking strangely frail and lonely in the room, Rae felt a pang of pity. There was pain in all lives. Geraldine had lived her glory days in her youth when she was the daughter of the big house, with plenty of suitors and lots of hunt balls to go to. That life had vanished long ago and then she’d lost her husband. With both her children grown up, she’d been lost. Plus, her daughter Leonora was hardly a model daughter, given as she was to her own tantrums.

It was a small price for Rae to pay to listen to Geraldine’s talk of the past and her mild delusions of grandeur.

‘Hold on a minute, Geraldine,’ she called and ran back downstairs. She found the vase with the long-stemmed cream roses. They’d have cost several body parts in a florists but in the market, she’d got twenty blooms for half the price. Quickly arranging them more elegantly, she added some greenery, then brought the vase upstairs along with a candle from the hallway.

Will had his long-suffering face on when she arrived, so Rae showed the flowers to her mother-in-law. ‘These will add the final touch,’ she said. ‘You can light the candle tonight to get you settled. It’s lavender.’

‘Thank you, Rae.’ Geraldine’s stern features softened. ‘You’re very kind to me.’

Rae smiled back. No, it wouldn’t cost her anything to be kind to Geraldine.

With the flowers installed on the dressing table and the candle lit, Geraldine liked the arrangement more.

When Rae and Will left, Geraldine did something she’d never done before: she hugged her daughter-in-law. It was a formal hug, but it was more than the cool cheek that Geraldine had offered for kissing for all the years Rae had known her.

‘You’ve been so kind to me,’ Geraldine said shortly, ‘better than my own daughter. Thank you, Rae.’

‘We’ll pick you up tomorrow for dinner with Anton,’ Rae reminded her. ‘He says it’s his treat because work is going so well.’

If he’s still talking to me, she added silently.

Anton’s presence filled the house on Golden Square as it always had. Somehow slender Rae and lean Will had produced this giant of a young man who topped six foot four and had to buy XL sweatshirts to fit his shoulders. The sports teams at school had always looked longingly at him, but Anton had never been a rugby or GAA man. He’d loved the chess club and fewer of the jocks had poked fun at the speccy-wearing chess nerds when Anton Kerrigan was on the team. Not that Anton had ever hit anyone, but only the foolish ever tried to find out what would happen if he did.

‘Mum!’ He grabbed her in a bear hug and whirled her around. ‘You’ve sent Granny home, have you? Has she got you drinking Earl Grey yet?’

Will laughed. Nobody could take offence at Anton with his gentle teasing. Even Geraldine adored him.

‘Lapsang souchong,’ joked his father. ‘And lemon, of course.’

They went to the kitchen where Rae busied herself with dinner while Anton and Will sat at the kitchen table and talked. Anton filled them in on his life, how the world of political writing was, and how he’d met this very nice girl whose father was half-Irish and owned a couple of horses in Millstreet.

‘Horses? Have you found yourself a moneyed girlfriend?’ joked his father. ‘They don’t have stables full of Arabian thoroughbreds and a hotline to the Gulf States, do they?’

‘No,’ said Anton. ‘Or at least, I don’t think so.’

‘I was reading a very interesting thing about new breeding techniques,’ began Will and they were off talking about that while Rae reheated the boeuf bourguignon and took the dauphinois potatoes out of the oven.

‘My favourites,’ said Anton appreciatively as he picked up his knife and fork.

Rae found that she couldn’t eat. Her stomach felt acid with anxiety and she pushed the food around her plate. The glass of red wine Will had poured her went untouched too. Even the very idea of eating made her feel ill. She had no idea how to broach this subject.

Finally, Will did it for her when he’d finished his meal.

‘We’ve got news for you,’ he said, pushing his cutlery together and leaning over to pour Anton another glass of red.

Anton looked at his parents cautiously, his gaze going from one to the other.

‘Mum,’ he said finally, ‘what’s wrong?’

Her mouth worked but nothing came out at first. ‘I have a daughter,’ she said finally. Bluntly; perhaps that was the only way after all.

Anton didn’t fall off his chair or scream. ‘A daughter,’ he said evenly. He hadn’t been a chess player for nothing. ‘You had her before you met Dad?’

She nodded. ‘A long time before. I was sixteen.’

Her son winced and one long arm stretched across the table to her hand.

‘What happened?’

She could tell he knew what had happened. She’d always been able to read Anton like a book. He understood it all in an instant. ‘She was adopted and she’s contacted me.’

‘Did Dad know?’ he asked.

Rae shook her head. ‘I kept it from both of you. When I met your Dad, there was never the right time to tell him, and then it was too late to tell him.’

‘Is that why you were estranged from your parents?’ Anton asked shrewdly.

This startled Rae. ‘No,’ she began, and then stopped. She’d never told Anton that much about her upbringing. She was afraid her bitterness over her parents would seep into him and she wanted to exorcise them from her new life. They were the past; he and Will were the future. ‘Probably that was part of it,’ she admitted. ‘I was ashamed. Not of getting pregnant, but of giving her up.’

‘So tell me everything you know about her,’ said Anton. ‘A sister,’ he added with a hint of boyish excitement. ‘I’ve got a sister.’

Rae sat on the edge of the seat in the hotel reception. She was so nervous and her bladder was playing up. But she daren’t leave to rush to the loo, in case Tricia turned up and Rae wasn’t there to meet her.

Tricia might think that Rae had changed her mind.

It had been a week since she’d opened the letter from her daughter.

Rae had wanted to phone Tricia instantly, but Will said she ought to sleep on it.

‘Not so you’ll change your mind,’ he said, holding her. ‘Simply so you can get your mind around this. It’s emotionally shocking stuff.’

‘You’re so wise and so good,’ Rae murmured. She leaned against his shoulder. ‘I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you.’

‘I wish you had. I hate thinking you couldn’t trust me –’ There was a faint note of reproach in his voice.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rae said again. Saying sorry felt so useless: if only there was something she could do to show him how sorry she was, but there was nothing. She could only explain what it had been like, how frightened she’d felt, how much pressure had been put on her to give Jasmine up. Even then, it was almost impossible to explain.

‘You’ve always been mysterious about your past,’ he went on. ‘I never quite knew if it was because Mother was so insistent about trying to ferret out details of your family and connections –’

At this, Rae laughed. Her secret was out in the open. Will hadn’t packed his bags with the news. Somehow, telling him had been the worst. She felt hopeful that Anton would take it the same way.

‘Telling you about my parents would have been impossible because they were so linked in my head with having to give up Jasmine – Tricia,’ she corrected herself.

Her daughter had been Jasmine for so many years, and it was hard to get used to another name.

‘If they’d been normal or in any way supportive, I’d never have given her up. But then, I’d never have left home so early, gone to college and met you, would I?’

‘No.’

After dinner, they’d gone upstairs and laid on their bed talking. Geraldine and Carmel wouldn’t be back for hours, and Will said he’d wait up for his mother.

‘She’d take one look at your face and want to know what’s wrong,’ he said.

Rae nodded. ‘In the early days, I wanted to tell you about Jasmine and my family,’ she said. ‘But when I went to your house for the first time and met your parents…’

She thought back to the early weeks of their courtship.

‘I had a baby when I was sixteen’ wasn’t something you could say on the first date. ‘It’s a defining part of me. I called her Jasmine.’

By the tenth date, she knew she had to say it. Will was special, kind. He would understand and attach no blame, even though Rae blamed herself.

And then he’d taken her home to meet his parents.

The Kerrigan family home was as far from Rae’s childhood home as it was possible to be. It was a detached house in
Raheny, with a huge garden mowed in perfect stripes. Rae stared at the stripes as she and Will walked up the drive, and wondered how you achieved such a thing. Or why you would bother.

Will’s father was like his son, tall and genial.

In his presence, Rae managed not to feel like the cleaner’s daughter who’d come round the front door by mistake. She stilled her breath and allowed herself to admire the paintings on the wall, the flowers on the occasional tables, the bronze statue on a vast round table. And then Geraldine had come down the stairs, like a duchess bestowing her presence on her loyal followers, and Rae had realised she’d never be able to tell this woman’s son about her past.

‘I was too young and scared, to be honest with you,’ she told Will. ‘I was a bit over-awed by your home and your mother.’

‘She liked people being over-awed,’ Will said grimly.

‘Perhaps.’ Rae could be magnanimous now. ‘She did grow up in a big house with staff, stables and a chauffeur. She can’t have been happy to see her son turn up with a girl with none of what she liked to call “background”. I had a background, all right, but it wasn’t one she’d care for. So I said nothing. I made out my parents didn’t travel and there was no question of you going to see them.’