The Ballroom Café (28 page)

Quickly, she pulled her hands across her cheeks. ‘Thank you, Gerry,’ she said and got up from the rock. ‘I don’t know what came over me. There has been so much going on these last days.’

Gerry O’Hare stood on the wet grass, to let her go in front. ‘I will drop you up at the back door, if you like; get a cup of tea the minute you get in.’

‘I will, Gerry.’

Debbie walked over the grass and up the steps to the veranda. It was wide and bare without the rocking chair. The house was still for sale, a flutter of litter in the corner, the windows grimy with dust. She pressed her nose to the glass and looked in to the sitting room. The burnt-orange couch with the lace backs her mother had crocheted, the low coffee table, which she was never allowed to put her feet on, the glass bowl where Agnes arranged red apples, four the perfect number each week. The gold brocade armchair near the fireplace was angled with its back to the window, as if Agnes were there, hand-sewing delicate buttons and hemming wide satin skirts.

Their wedding photograph was on the wall: Agnes leaning into her husband, Rob laughing, his arm around her waist.

Feeling like she was intruding, she stepped back.

‘Debbie, Debbie. What are you doing here?’ Nancy Slowcum pulled into the driveway. ‘I wasn’t expecting you until later, honey. It hasn’t sold. Only an outsider will go for a house like this. Somebody who doesn’t care about the history.’

‘I couldn’t drive past.’

They both stood, as if waiting for Rob Kading to emerge from the overgrown side path, a tin cup of coffee in his hand. Nancy stepped onto the veranda.

‘You found out about the adoption?’

‘You knew?’

‘Agnes swore me to secrecy.’

‘You knew everything?’

‘Not until just before she died.’

‘Did you tell Rob?’

Nancy leaned against the veranda post. ‘How could I, Debbie? What good was it going to do a man who was grieving so bad to find out his child had been stolen from the arms of her real mother? Rob wouldn’t have been able to live with that.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I couldn’t,’ Nancy said, kicking at the worn paint with her foot so that it fell off in slices onto the porch floor. ‘It was easier to hide it, hope it would never come up. I am a sorry coward.’

‘Nancy, I don’t blame you; I just don’t know why you didn’t tell me. All these years, I could have known.’

‘Debs, darling, I know now, I should have; you had to put up with so much stress over there, and we could have avoided all that. When you told me you were in Ireland, I couldn’t say anything, not over the phone. It had to be a face-to-face meeting.’

‘I’m here now,’ Debbie said, her voice low and firm.

A child whisked by on a scooter; his father waved.

‘That’s Haussmann’s son, moved back here two months ago, three doors down. Everybody wants the house to sell; it’s bringing down the street,’ Nancy said, flicking dust off the veranda steps with her shoes.

‘Aunt Nance, you should have told me.’

Nancy walked down the steps, stooping to examine a rose bush. ‘There was nobody to prune it this year. Maybe I should have told you, but it’s easy to look back and be wise. Did you want to go into the old place?’

‘I don’t think I could face it. I thought it was being cleared out.’

‘Realtor said to leave it; it made it more homely. We can talk at my kitchen table.’

By the time Debbie followed on in her car to Nancy’s, she was already bustling about making tea. There was an agitation about her that Debbie noticed as she piled too many biscuits on to a plate, spilling the milk as she placed a jug on the table and fussed unnecessarily over napkins. When, finally, she poured the boiling water into the teapot and sat down, it spouted onto the table, making her jump up again, snatching a tea towel to clean the mess. Debbie reached over and caught her hand.

‘Nance, it’s OK.’

‘You are skin and bone, Debbie; this goddamn cancer is knocking it out of you.’

‘You need to tell me everything. I want to hear it while I still have the energy to deal with it.’ Debbie coughed and spluttered, so her aunt got a box of tissues and left them beside her.

Nancy took a deep breath and slurped her tea. ‘I never suspected anything. In fact, I always thought you had Agnes’s slender nose and Rob’s hair colouring. When they moved to Bowling Green, Agnes was the happiest woman. Mrs Haussmann, who had nine, used to say you were the luckiest girl in the world.’ Nancy stopped to press her fingertips under her eyes, so she didn’t start to cry. She switched on the kettle. ‘I think we’ll need a hot drop in the pot.’

Debbie smiled, because her aunt was widely known to drink far too much sugary tea.

‘You’re such a good girl; I was afraid when you went to Ireland you wouldn’t want anything more to do with us.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ Debbie said.

‘Your mother: you found out about her?’

‘She died a year after I was born.’

‘I am so sorry, Debs.’

‘Tell me everything you know.’

Debbie stretched out her legs and folded her arms, waiting for her aunt to begin. Even if she was reading her shopping list, Nancy liked to know she had an audience.

‘Agnes so wanted a daughter, but I think the reality could never live up to the ideal in her head. Don’t get me wrong, you were not a difficult child; in fact, you were the sweetest thing, but for some reason, Agnes never seemed fully happy.

‘Agnes was a perfectionist. She couldn’t sit in a room if the furniture wasn’t just so. She even had Rob return the Christmas tree once, because when they decorated it, it leaned slightly to the left.’

Stopping to take a breath, Nancy reached for a new packet of biscuits and poured a few onto a small plate.

‘I’m telling you all these extra bits because it is so damn difficult to talk about the rest.’

‘I need to know, Nance.’ Debbie tried not to sound impatient.

‘Switch on the oven there; it’ll heat up the kitchen for us.’

Debbie turned the oven dial and opened the door.

‘Not yet, Debs, let it heat up first.’

Nancy waited until Debbie had settled back in her chair and she had her full attention once again.

‘Aggie came to me. She was missing for months and was home two days. It was all so strange. She wouldn’t tell us anything, where she had been, anything. That morning when she came in, she was agitated, but I got her to sit and have tea. She said she had gone to Montana and holed up in a small motel, but now she was sure she was back for good. She wanted to tell me what had forced her away in the first place. She swore me to secrecy, said she had done an evil thing and she was being punished, every second of every day. She said you were adopted, but that you had been stolen from your Irish mother, a young, unmarried mother. She paid extra, under the table, for a newborn; Rob knew nothing, only that she had travelled to Ireland to collect a child. The baby she was due to adopt died at birth and Agnes kicked up a stink, insisting she was not leaving without a child. She offered a huge whack of money. It worked. The nuns said she would have to extend her trip by a week. They fed cod liver oil to the young woman and she gave birth. Agnes waited in another room. You were brought to her straight away. The poor mother was told you were dead.’

Nancy got up from the table and leaned against the sink.

‘I told her, look at the life they had given you, what a lovely, happy girl you were. Curse my stupidity. Debs, if I had known what she was going to do I would never have let her go home. She said she wanted to go home and freshen up and be ready for you both when you came home.’

Nancy stopped to take a biscuit, the sweet bite taking her mind off the story.

Debbie reached over and patted her on the shoulder. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Nance.’

‘I should have done more for her. To the day I die, I’ll regret that I let her go home on her own. I was a fool.’

‘What happened?’

‘Don’t you remember?’

‘Remember what?’

‘You found her.’

‘Tell me, Nance, please. I only know she died.’ Debbie clasped and unclasped her hands, drifting from being supremely angry to feeling sorry for her aunt, who was crying quietly.

Nancy began to pace the room. ‘Surely you remember something. It was when you stopped talking for six months; it must have been the shock.’

‘Remember what, Nancy?’

Her aunt stared at Debbie. ‘You ran in from school. You had a gold star for the spelling. You found her.’

‘What?’

‘Hanging over the second landing.’

Debbie stared at her aunt; she heard the midday goods train trundle through the town.

‘I don’t remember.’

Nancy reached out and took Debbie’s hands. ‘Best that you never do. The shock kept you silent for months afterwards; we were so worried.’

Debbie dropped her head, too exhausted to cry.

Nancy switched on the kettle.

‘Rob found her after you. You were hiding, shaking to bits in his potting shed. There is something else you might as well know. She left a note. Rob dropped it in the hall. He looked everywhere for it afterwards; he couldn’t remember a word of it.’

Nancy’s face reddened and she began to pick at the edge of the table.

‘You have the note, don’t you?’

‘Leave it, darling; there’s enough here to break your heart.’

‘Aunt Nance, you are my only source. If you know any more, please help.’

‘What more would I know?’

Debbie reached out and grabbed her aunt’s hands. ‘You never were good at hiding anything, Nance. I have to have that note.’

Relaxing her hands in Debbie’s grip, Nancy began to cry. ‘Don’t you know enough? There is a lifetime of sorrow in what you know already.’

Nancy roughly pulled her hands away and went to the sink. She could see the red cardinals dip down to the little bird table Bert had made and placed, so she could watch the birds’ antics as she did the washing-up.

Without thinking, Nancy turned on the tap and rinsed out their two mugs, leaving them to drain. Debbie watched her. Nancy got a chair, so she could reach the top of the kitchen cabinets. She pulled on an old tin box stuck in at the back. Blotted with rust, the biscuit tin was dulled with age and stiff when she tried to open it. She sat down at the table and wrenched the lid.

‘I didn’t want anybody coming across it by accident.’

The letter was loose, on light, soft, pink paper.

Debbie felt cold; the letter was heavy in her hand. A sea of nothingness lay ahead of her, ready to swallow her, if she let it.

‘I think I need to be on my own to read this.’

‘Of course you do. You take as long as you like; I have a few chores to finish.’

Nancy made the chair screech as she pushed it back in her hurry to get up.

Debbie heard her fuss about in the basement as she slowly unfolded the pink paper.

Bowling Green, October 1968

My darling Rob,

Remember when we were so happy? If I could have one day like that again, I would trade everything for it. A black fog envelops me. It should be that way. I cannot live as a fraud any longer.

A long time ago I did something unforgivable. I have run away from it, but I cannot escape it.

I cannot forgive myself and I know I can’t blame Deborah either, but it is a block to me loving her. I have done a terrible thing and there is no way to right the wrong.

When I arrived in Ireland, the baby assigned to us had died, caught some sort of fever and died. I remember it was like somebody had kicked me in the stomach. The nun in charge, Sister Consuelo, said another child would come along and we were at the top of the list. I did my usual thing and stamped my foot and made quite a stink and they got me a baby.

Rob, I am ashamed to even write this, ashamed to say it now, but I can’t love her. It is a terrible thing for a mother to admit. Isn’t it?

As she grows up, the hatred I have for myself intensifies. I can see no way out. I am surrounded by blackness. She is a good child and I know you can love her. But I can’t stay and watch her grow into a young woman. In her, I see the woman I wronged. She is the embodiment of the great wrong I did; there are days I can’t bear the sight of her.

I want the pretence to be over. I falsely registered her birth in Ireland with our names as parents. I don’t ask for your forgiveness; I don’t deserve it. I merely offer this explanation. It is time to end this pretence.

I made sure we brought that child to the US, but I wronged her and us. I have always loved you and I can only say I did what I did because I knew you wanted to be a father so much.

In time, try to remember me fondly.

With all my love,

Aggie.

Her heart was empty and her knee joints stiff, so when she stepped from the table she looked as if she was in pain. She put the letter back in the box and pressed hard on the lid, to wedge it in place. Nancy she could see pottering about the garden, idly fingering her flowers. Debbie startled her when she spoke.

‘Nancy, I was wondering, would you help me settle in at the Marigold Hospice?’

Nancy swung around, tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks, lodging in the hollow at the base of her neck. ‘Darling, I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

‘It won’t be easy for you.’

‘Nor for you, my sweet, but I will be with you to guide you and see you off; never fear on that.’

‘I put the letter back in the tin.’

‘The right place for it.’

Order of Divine Sisters, Rathnew, Co. Wicklow, April 2008

The notification of the Bishop Lucey’s visit came with just an hour to go.

‘His Grace apologises for making a night call, but he has no choice considering the press are practically camping out at the palace,’ his secretary told Assumpta on the phone.