What She Never Told Me (24 page)

‘I just wanted to watch the twins playing. They made me laugh with their high spirits. They gave me hope. I think I had a vague notion that I could become friends with the family, but I probably knew deep down that they would find it odd that someone of my class would want to be involved with them.

‘Believe me when I tell you that I had no intention, no plan, and that what happened was something I had no control over. On the day my daughter would have been four years old, I found myself wandering around the area where I used to work and where this woman and her girls lived. It was cold and dark, a couple of weeks before Christmas, but some houses already had Christmas trees lit in the windows of their front rooms.

‘When I saw the little girl, one of the twins, running along the pavement, my first thought was about how cold she must be, because she wasn’t wearing a coat. She stopped at a green pillar box and was jumping up and down, trying to put a letter into it, but couldn’t reach it. I went to help her. I was going to put the letter into the box and then I was going to take her home to her family and tell them to take better care of her and not let her wander around in the dark and cold without a coat.

‘But I didn’t, and I still cannot explain what happened in my mind to make me do what I did. I took her with me. I can’t remember very much about those first few days and weeks, but after a while it was as if I had my daughter back, as if I had been given another chance to keep her alive.

‘Now, I am giving you the opportunity to find the family into which you were born. Their name is O’Connor and they lived at 10 Walter Square, in Crumlin. They may not be there any longer, so you may need the help of the Gardaí to trace them. Dermot, by the way, knew nothing of what I did, so please do not think of him with anything but affection.

‘I have often thought of talking to Sandy about all of this, knowing that whatever he did would be in your best interest. It’s true that I was doubtful about him at first, and that our personalities did clash. How could any man love you as much as I did? But Sandy did, and I liked to think he might have been able to help bring this story to some kind of conclusion that might have saved everyone heartache. But I never did talk to him because I knew that it was wishful thinking on my part that everything could be put right. And, in any case, how can you repair the heart of a mother who has lost her child?

‘There isn’t much more to tell. The other part of your story is something you will have to discover for yourself. Perhaps, as you read this, you are wondering what our life together was all about. But let me tell you that you have been the light of my life, the star that burned brightly when I thought all the others had gone out. I wasn’t always a good mother. Sometimes I acted in ways that left you hurt and confused, and I took decisions that you may still not understand, even when you have read this letter. I will not make excuses for myself. I did something that some would say is beyond forgiveness. But I dare to hope that, even when you come to hate me for what I did, you will also remember everything that was great and wonderful between us.’

Sandy stops. ‘That’s it,’ he says.

‘Did she sign it?’

‘Yes,’ he says, holding it out to me.

I take it from him and read.

From the mother who loved you best.

There’s one more thing I have to do before I go back to London.

I weave through the paths among the graves behind Liam, the mountains around us and the Atlantic beside us. We stop in front of a grave. My real parents are buried here, under a plain headstone that lists their names and the dates on which they died.

‘This is it,’ Liam says.

He stands, head bowed, and I can tell that he’s praying quietly. I wish I could pray, too.

I’ve stared at photographs of my real mother, Mary O’Connor, who never gave up on the possibility that her missing child would be found, who kept all those little clothes and toys for her, just in case, by a miracle, she came home one day. I can imagine her pain, just as I’d be able to feel for any woman dealt such a tragedy. But I can’t yet think of her as my mother.

The deepest pain I feel is for the woman I still think of as my mother, racked by grief over the death of her child, tortured and demented to the point of stealing another woman’s child.

Some day, I’ll grieve properly for Mary O’Connor, the way she must have grieved for me. But now, as I look out beyond the graves to the sea, the tears that stream down my face are for the woman who stole the childhood I should have had, who stole even my memories.

I see her in the hospital, becoming smaller and smaller in the bed, shrinking before my eyes. Her eyes are closed most of the time and, when she opens them, there are only glimmers of lucidity. And now I feel sure that, in those last hours of her life, she wanted to talk to me about what she’d done, to try to explain the inexplicable. Did she remember, every time her eyes opened, that she’d left behind her all the secrets she’d kept from me and which would hurt me? Did she want to prepare me for the terrible discoveries I would make?

In my mind, I hear that
ssshhh
sound she made as she lay dying. Only now it becomes
Ailish
, over and over again.
Ailish
.

Oh, Mamma! What I would give to be able to turn the clock back, all the clocks, but especially the one that counted down to the death of your little girl. Because then things would have been so very different for all of us.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Autumn is on its last legs. Most of the leaves have fallen and the temperatures are dipping low at night. I stayed several weeks in Kerry with Liam and Nora and Imelda, and now Nora is in London with Sandy and me. Now that I know her, I can’t bear the thought of not being near her. I want her to think about moving here, or to Ireland. There’s nothing keeping her in New York, she says. She can write and sing anywhere. She’ll give it some thought.

Sandy and I are still thinking about whether he should take the Dublin job he has been offered, but I have a feeling we both know that neither of us will be leaving London. It’s our home. And there’s another reason we will probably stay here. We’re going to try to have a baby. I’m still a little afraid, but I’m not terrified.

Nora loves Ursula. They’re birds of a feather and I feel almost jealous when I look at the two of them together, their auburn heads moving enthusiastically as they become involved in some vivid discussion. They look more like sisters than Nora and I do. I take Nora to meet Sheila, whom I’ll continue to see because I know I’m going to need her in the months ahead as I swing between loyalty to my mother, my not-real mother, and disgust at what she did.

‘You’re in good hands, there,’ Nora says as we leave. ‘Maybe I’ll get myself a shrink, too.’

But I don’t take her with me to Northamptonshire. The visit I promised David is long overdue and I want to see him by myself.

He looks frail, older than when I saw him just a few months ago. We’ve been through so much together that I feel a responsibility towards him. I will be the nearest thing to a daughter he can have. If he were my father, I would be proud.

We sit on old striped deckchairs in his autumn garden, where the sun still bathes the remaining flowers and plants. Wrapped up in jumpers and scarves, we drink tea and I tell him about the family I’m growing to love.

He listens quietly, and sometimes he bends his head and lifts a hand to his eye, and I wonder who his tears are for. Perhaps they’re for everyone – for his daughter, for Marjorie, for himself and for me.

Eventually, when there’s no longer any warmth from the sun, he stands up and we start moving back towards the house. I notice that he shuffles, that he’s slower than he was just a few months ago.

‘I’d like to play something for you,’ David says, taking a vinyl record and placing it on an old turntable, carefully lowering the stylus on to the track he wants me to hear.

I close my eyes as I hear the crackly old recording, well worn from frequent use, burst into life. I’ve sung these words often and have never failed to be moved by them. And now, because I know David’s story and because there’s no happy ending for him, I feel as if my heart is going to break all over again as I listen.

Do not go, my love, without asking my leave.

I have watched all night,

and now my eyes are heavy with sleep.

I fear lest I lose you when I am sleeping.

Do not go, my love, without asking my leave.

I start up and stretch my hands to touch you.

I ask myself, ‘Is it a dream?’

Could I but entangle your feet with my heart

And hold them fast to my breast!

Do not go, my love, without asking my leave.

Perhaps he’s thinking of that night, long ago, when he watched his child die, begging her not to go, staying awake through the long hours as she slipped away. Or maybe he’s thinking of my mother, wishing he had been able to keep her near him. I open my eyes. He’s gazing out towards the garden. We both sit quietly until the music ends.

‘It gives me comfort,’ he says.

The song has stirred up my own thoughts, thoughts I will never talk about to Liam and Nora. I am sitting by my mother’s hospital bed, waiting for her to die, talking quietly to her and hoping she can hear me tell her how much I love her. I see her bedroom in that little flat of my childhood, the bedspread startlingly red against the dark floorboards and wardrobe. On the dressing table, I see her Coty lipstick and Max Factor powder compact, her necklaces and bracelets, the silver cigarette holder that she was never without. And I close my eyes and wait for a few moments, knowing it will come, the woody, citrusy scent of Calèche
that lingered in the air long after she had passed.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to three brilliant and lovely people, from whom I’ve learned so much — my agent, Nicola Barr at Greene & Heaton, and my editors at Quercus, Stef Bierwerth and Kathryn Taussig.

Thanks to Nikki Dupin for a cover design I loved the moment I saw it, to Penny Price for her great copy edit and to all the Quercus team.

Thanks also to Richard Skinner of Faber Academy, a most generous writer and teacher, and to my fellow writers on the 2013 course.

And thanks to all those — family and friends — who found the time to read that very first draft and encouraged me to keep writing.