Authors: Kate Kerrigan
Ellis Island (24 page)
Later that morning, John packed up two boxes of recently born chicks, put them in the back of the cart to sell at the fair and drove us in. He was all dressed up in a white shirt and tie and a tweed jacket; I had parted and combed his hair over to one side, vowing to purchase a sharp pair of scissors in the town haberdashery store so that I could cut his hair properly. I was wearing a simple woolen day dress and a coat that I had come to consider rather ordinary. I did not want to draw attention to myself on my first public outing, but was surprised at how nervous I was all the same, as we came toward the main street.
The town was alive with people and animals. The old and poor women were in shawls and woolen skirts as they had always been, and the better-off ladies wore hats and gloves. I saw a young woman pass by in a beautiful red felt hat with matching gloves and regretted, for a moment, my ordinary coat. Then I noticed that she was a girl from the class below me in national school. I was about to lift my hand when, instead of greeting me, she turned to the old woman next to her and whispered. I was convinced she was talking about me and color drew up to my cheeks. I felt the same cruel rejection I had experienced as a child and had a sudden craving for the anonymity of New York.
We came to a halt halfway down the hill as scores of farmers unloaded their prized cattle into the market square, abandoning their carts without regard for who was before or behind them. It was chaos. John pulled up behind an old farmer struggling to control an angry-looking bullock; greeting him, he swung himself down to help. My heart pinched as I noticed the stern set of his chin as he handled the bullock by the nose ring, staggering slightly and then quickly straightening up, proving himself a man in front of his farming peers. I felt for a moment that it was not just the lack of things that made me want to go back to New York, but rather the monotonous sadness in this rural life where men had to prove themselves by being physically strong and women by being virtuous and long-suffering. I wanted to be back in a world where a man could define himself by looking smart and reciting verse and a woman by her wit and how fast she could type.
Once the bull was calmed, John made a deal with the farmer that he would sell our chicks for us. The toothless ancient proffered me a grin that would have frightened Satan back to hell in an instant. I smiled back as cheerily as I could, then John lifted me down from the cart and we walked through the town together.
The ground was wet with dung and the air thick with the sickly sweet stench of animal breath. The shops were the same as when I left. Wherever possible, businesses doubled or even tripled up. The undertaker was also a publican and a grocer. The butcher was a blacksmith, and the baker had a barber out the back. The chemist shop was tiny, and sold every type of medicine for man and horse, but if you wanted a lipstick or a bottle of scent you had to travel to Galway. Moran’s the drapery shop was the only place in town that sold clothes, but practicality took precedence over fashion. In its window, tweed hats were piled next to ladies’ nightdresses and cotton towels, against a backdrop of filthy, flocked wallpaper that had not changed since I was a child.
A few doors down from there was Regan’s, the haberdashery. They sold household items—buckets, brooms, mops, saucepans, cooking pots and ovens, along with “gift and luxury” items, such as crockery and glassware. Their small window was always filled with the latest in popular religious paraphernalia. Before going into the shop, I stopped for a second to look at a statuette of St. Francis of Assisi standing on a grassy knoll with a collection of birds on his shoulder and rabbits at his feet seeming to nibble on his bare toes. Although some attempt had been made to give the patron saint of animals a face, his vestments were simply daubed in dull brown paint, the grass a lump of flat green. No gold leaf, or detail or varnish to liven him up. A duller and more miserable-looking saint I had never seen.
“Do you like it?” John asked.
I let out a derisive puff, then, regretting the small cruelty, quickly said, “We have better things to spend our money on, John.” In the shop, I let him engage Mrs. Regan in polite conversation while I walked round and picked out my purchases: a sweeping brush with firm bristles; a mop—I checked for firmness by pulling at the soft string head until I found one that did not shed; two good flannel cloths for cleaning and dusting; a tin of beeswax; starch and blue; a box of powdered bleach; a small scrubbing brush. As John chatted, Mrs. Regan’s eyes followed me round the shop. I didn’t like Mrs. Regan. As a child I had once been in here with my father and witnessed her loudly refusing credit to a woman in front of her children and in full view of the other customers. She was also in the habit of looking down her nose on country people. Town people often considered themselves infinitely more sophisticated than those who lived a rural life. “Tuppence ha’penny looking down on tuppence,” Maidy used to describe it as, and Clare Regan epitomized that backward attitude. If America had done one thing to me, it was to reduce my tolerance for meanness—fiscal or otherwise. I had no reason to fear the likes of a small-town snob like Mrs. Regan anymore.
“Do you have any scissors?” I asked, without offering her a cursory greeting. She raised an eyebrow at my rudeness, then reached under the counter and placed a pair of small, shiny scissors in front of me. They were perfect. I picked them up and gently felt along the blade with the tip of my finger, being careful not to slice through my skin, as it was razor sharp. “I’ll take them,” I was saying when I heard a voice behind me.
“Ellie Hogan—I had heard you were home.”
It was Kathleen Condon, standing so close she was breathing practically down my neck. She had gained some weight, or was perhaps pregnant. She still had the thick glasses, and she gave me a sideways smile as she added, “And look at John walking around . . .”
“Good morning, Kathleen,” he said, tipping his hat, all smiles as he packed our purchases into a box.
“It must have been wonderful to come home and find your husband all well again for you, Ellie?”
“Some small comfort after the death of your poor father,” Mrs. Regan added, before crossing herself and saying, “He was
such
a gentleman. We all miss him terribly, you know . . .”
I felt sickened. America may have armed me with some attitude, but I had forgotten what a weapon knowledge was here. These women had surely seen my father laid out in his coffin, said the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary at his grave, perhaps embraced my mother at the church. They knew about John’s injuries, and my parents’ brush with poverty—in this place, they knew more about my life here than I did. To them, I was not an enlightened woman returned from the sophistications of New York, but a local girl who had abandoned my husband in his hour of need and neglected my daughterly duties in not even making it back in time for my father’s funeral. I would have felt less hurt if I had not feared there was some shred of truth in what they had said.
“Thank you for your kind concern, ladies,” I said, my hands shaking slightly as I held my purse over to John. “Would you settle our account please, John, while I get some air?”
When I got outside I tried to calm myself down. Breathing deeply, I turned and looked at Mrs. Regan’s tatty window and suddenly I was filled with anger. Who did these women think they were, judging me? “
You watch your step, Ellie Hogan,
” they had been telling me, “
you’re back on our turf now.
”
But I wasn’t going to be chased out of a shop by the likes of Kathleen Condon. I was better than that!
As I turned to go back in, I saw John nodding at the window and asking, “How much is the St. Francis, Mrs. Regan?”
All the way home, I fumed in silence at John for buying that horrible statue of St. Francis. As soon as we were back at the house, I hopped out of the cart without him helping me down and went straight into the kitchen, where I immediately set about lighting the fire and clattering about generally.
It was not the statue in itself, although I hated giving the Regan woman money—it was the whole thing of being back here in Ireland. The cattle, the clothes, the cart, the way that everyone knew my business, the frustration of stepping into a life I had hoped I had left behind. Except that I had not even hoped it—I
had
left it behind. This wasn’t who I was anymore. I had shopped in fancy boutiques, eaten in restaurants as if such a thing were commonplace, traveled the ocean twice, mixed with people of all colors and creeds, and socialized in mansions with people of great wealth and culture. Now, here I was, quibbling over a pair of scissors, my shoes dirtied with dung and the hem of my skirts splattered. It felt as if I had been grabbed by the ankles and dragged facedown in the mud backward into a world where I no longer belonged.
“I want to go back to America.”
It just came out. I had planned how I would approach the subject with John and knew I had to wait for the right time and place. But John loved me, I knew that now. He loved me more than ever, I had known it from the first moment I saw him again, and I knew he always would. He had not meant to let me down, he had not come to America because he had not realized how important it was. Once he saw how much I loved it there, how miserable I would be if I had to stay in Ireland, he would concede and come with me. “As soon as my mother is settled,” I repeated, “I want us to go back to America.”
John went pale and sat down on the edge of the trunk, rubbing his hands across his chin and mouth.
“We’ll miss the family, but, you know, we can send for them, John. We will have enough money within weeks to bring Maidy and Paud across. My mother might even join us.”
John did not lift his eyes from his feet and continued rubbing his face.
“In fact,” I said, riding the wave of his silence, “we could bring them with us now. My job is open, and a place for you as well. We could get a loan from my boss . . .” Or Charles would send me as many tickets as I wanted—he was, after all, still a good friend; Emilie would move back in with her parents once she knew how important this was, or perhaps we could find a suitable house to rent in Brooklyn. My mind was racing. “We will find the money easily enough, John—nothing is a problem, anything is possible . . .”
“I’m not going to America, Ellie,” he said firmly, his head still down.
“You say that, John, but—”
“I’m not going, Ellie,” he said again, quietly. “Don’t think I haven’t thought seriously about it, because I have. I’ve thought about it every night you were away, and me longing to feel your soft limbs wrapped around me—”
I wasn’t in the mood for this romantic nonsense and burst in, “Listen, John, I can’t live here anymore. Not now I know how much better things are over there.” I listed them off on my fingers: “There’s electricity, there’s telephones, cars are commonplace . . .”
“Those things aren’t important, Ellie.”
“No, John—not when you live in a backwater like this where nobody knows any better. When they’ve never been to proper department stores, or taken frequent trips to the picture houses or restaurants. Where everybody is used to making do on boiled bacon and cabbage, living every day with muck on their boots like paupers. But I have
been
there, John. I have seen what is possible—the luxury and the freedom—where you can say and do as you please and everything is freely available:
everything
. I won’t stay here, John, where there is nothing for me,
nothing!
”
He looked at me bitterly. “So that’s how it is,” he said quietly. “There’s nothing here for you, is that it? What about me, Ellie? What about your family? Am I not the man enough for you, now that I’m crippled? Is that why you went, maybe, to get away from me?”
“No. No!” I shouted. “I love you! That’s why I’m back—to bring you back with me. I want us all to go.”
“Why can’t you just be happy with what we’ve got, Ellie. Why?”
“I just can’t, John. I want more than this. I want to go back to America. I
hate
it here—it’s backward, it’s poor, it’s a filthy backwater . . .”
John’s lips curled, his eyes became flinty with anger and I knew before he spoke out that I had gone too far. “How
dare
you speak about our country like that. This is the country I fought for! If you hate it so much, what did all of it mean?” He banged his leg with his walking stick, then broke off and, breathing hard, dropped his head into his hands, calming himself down.
“I’m sorry, John,” I said, though it was in words only, and we both knew it. “I just believe we could make a good life in New York, and I want that. For both of us.”
“Well, Ellie, I . . .” He faltered and for one glorious moment I thought he was conceding.
“Just for a year, John—see how you like it?”
For a year he might agree, then once we got there . . .
He said, “I love you, Ellie, but I can’t leave here. I won’t leave Ireland.” His voice became so soft that it was barely audible as he added: “My roots are here. It’s where I’m from. I can’t explain it any more than that.”
I stood and looked at him; his face was a mixture of sadness and fear. As each second passed I hoped that he would change his mind, but I knew deep in my heart that he would not. John had fought for this country. He had given Ireland his loyalty and he had martyred to it his strong, young body. He loved me, but he
belonged
to his country. John’s dream was for the two of us to live out the loving rural idyll of his parents—in the house they had built. His dream was nothing without me, and yet he was prepared to sacrifice his marriage for his love of Ireland.
I dreamed of New York and I wanted to return there, but I knew that my future would be meaningless without John. I was trapped in Ireland by my love for him. So America was not my destiny after all, but the wet, boggy soil of home. In my mind, I took my dream and threw it at my husband’s feet—dashed it on the cold, bare flags of our kitchen floor.
John was staring down at his feet now. He was terrified, yet ready for me to say I was returning to America without him. I had never loved and hated him more than in that moment.
I turned to poke the fire and slowly lifted the kettle onto the grate, living out my last few moments of power—wondering if I should leave him overnight, believing I was going to abandon him all over again.
After a while I said, “I want you to put boards down on these floors, John. There’s no comfort in the stone.”
