The First Time I Said Goodbye (21 page)

“One for the road, boys!” he cheered. “Seems this man here is going to take my wee Stella for his own!”

Ray gulped back the shot of amber liquid put in front of him, not sure what was it was but definitely sure that he couldn’t refuse it. He felt it warm his throat and burn in his stomach as one of the men patted him roughly on the back.

“Fair play to you, son!” the docker roared, the strength of his enthusiastic patting momentarily winding Ray. “And good luck taking a Derry girl away from her mammy!”

* * *

Stella had taken to her bed. Her mother had shushed her and rubbed her back and assured her that it would be okay and not to worry until she spoke to Ray directly. Of course she couldn’t tell her mother the whole story – telling her the whole story would give the game away about the secret flat and her mother wouldn’t be fit for the shock. So instead she had simply told her a lie – that she had met with one of the other factory girls who had told her that Ray’s unit had been given their notice to return to the United States and that he would be going.

She had cried until even Dolores had shown an ounce of sympathy which, for Dolores was a big deal.

“Why don’t you go for a wee sleep?” she said, looking at her sister’s swollen red eyes and her tear-stained face.

“It’s Christmas Eve, there’s stuff to be done.”

“There will always be stuff to be done,” Dolores said softly.

Kathleen nodded and added: “And, pet, you are use to neither man nor beast the state you have yourself in. Take a wee rest, settle yourself. I’m sure it will all work out and you’ll be laughing at this before long.”

Stella sniffed, trying but failing to see how she could ever find anything about this funny. She was sure Dusty wasn’t lying – that this was really happening.

“Just go, pet, have a wee rest and you may well feel much better then and it will all come right,” her mother said.

Stella nodded, unable to talk any more and traipsed up the stairs, vaguely aware, through her tears, that Dolores was following her.

“There’s more to this than you’re letting on, isn’t there?” Dolores said. “It isn’t just what you heard at the shops?”

Stella nodded.

Dolores sat on the end of the bed beside her sister and stroked her hair. “I know he loves you, Stella. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’ve seen that and I’ve seen a lot of men in this town look at girls and I know the look of true love. Sure isn’t it how Daddy looks at Mammy? And you would never doubt them for a second.”

“Then where is he, Dolores? He should have been there. He should have been there to tell me.”

“Where?” Dolores, looked at her sister quizzically. “At the shop?”

Stella shook her head, unable to tell her sister more even though she loved her and trusted her. She didn’t want to let anyone know just how far she had fallen for her blue-eyed Yank.
She curled into a ball onto the bed and let the tears fall. Was he really going to leave her? She couldn’t bear it – she couldn’t even consider the thought of him not being there. Offering a silent prayer that this had all been some horrible misunderstanding, she questioned why any God would allow her to fall so far and so madly in love with someone and then take him away from her.

She felt her sister lie down beside and they lay there as the darkness fell deeper and stars started to glitter in the Christmas Eve sky and she wished she were a child again and that she could make a simple wish for just one Christmas present.

Just him.

All she wanted was him.

* * *

Dolores woke Stella just after eleven. “It’s time to get ready for Midnight Mass. I told Mammy to let you sleep on. That you don’t need to be going to chapel with your eyes standing out of your head from all that gurning but, compassionate and all as our mammy is, you know that nothing comes between her and Midnight Mass.”

“Can you not tell her I’ll stay and mind the wee ones and youse can all go on?” Stella said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, feeling how her skin was rough and dry from her crying. “I don’t want to face anyone.”

“I tried that, but Mrs Murphy is going to sit with the wains. Sure you know what she’s like – holds no court with Midnight Mass – wants to be up and at it, swanning about in her finery at twelve Mass tomorrow. No good going when it’s dark and no one can see your new jewellery.”

Stella sniffed. “So there’s no way out?”

“You were lucky to escape bathing the boys. Seán was a whole handling – over-excited about Santa. Mammy was threatening to hit him over the head with the rubber hammer if he didn’t quiet down.”

Stella laughed, a forced giggle at the thought of her six-year-old brother full of beans. “I should have been up to put him to bed.”

“He was grand,” Dolores said, opening the wardrobe in the corner of the room and pulling out their two good dresses. “I told him you had a cold. He said he would ask Santa to make you better.”

Stella stepped out of the bed and walked to the dressing table where she caught sight of her swollen eyes in the mirror. They looked even worse than they felt. She rubbed some day cream on her cheeks, feeling the sting as she did so.

“I take it Ray hasn’t been by?” she asked, knowing the answer even as she spoke.

“I would have woken you, pet,” Dolores said softly. “But no, he hasn’t been. But sure isn’t he meant to be here tomorrow? Didn’t he say he would be here tomorrow for dinner?”

Stella nodded but she knew that if it was true and he was being shipped out, and if he cared about her feelings even one iota, he would have been there earlier. He would have assured her it was okay – it was going to be okay.

She pulled the brush through her hair, dabbed on some pan stick to hide the worst of her blemished face and dressed in her Sunday best. “I won’t make a show of myself,” she told Dolores as she fastened a clasp in her hair. “I won’t show Mammy or Daddy up. I’ll go to Mass and I’ll not let anyone know my heart is breaking. How’s that?”

She brushed some blusher on her already rosy cheeks and sprayed some scent at her neck before slipping on her gold cross and chain. Slipping her feet into her shoes, she made her way downstairs where her mother, father and her two older brothers were waiting, all in their finery.

Her mother was in her usual tizz trying to get everyone organised and out the door, even though it was still a full half hour before the bells would toll, calling them into the chapel. She liked a good seat. She liked to be in the perfect place to hear every Latin word the priest muttered and to sit in silence as the choir sang “Oh Holy Night”, and she liked to be one of the first at the crib to welcome the Baby Jesus.

“She’d have been one of the shepherds back in the day,” Ernest used to joke each year as Kathleen was first at the crib to bless herself and sneak a few strands of straw to put in her purse.

“It’s lucky,” she would say. “Ensures your purse is never empty.”

Ernest would laugh. “That may be the case, pet, but it’s only never empty because it’s filled with straw.”

Kathleen would thump him gently on the arm and on they would go.

But as Stella walked down the stairs on that night, her mother stopped and looked at her, her eyes a little misty. She willed her
mother to say nothing. Ask her no questions, not even how she was feeling, because she was determined to hold her head high and holding her head high would require not thinking about it . . . at all.

“Let’s go then,” Stella said, putting on her coat and scarf. “Can’t have Mammy late.”

She led the family out the door into the cool night air and walked silently towards the chapel, her breath forming on the wind. As she walked she felt an arm loop in hers. For a moment she thought it would be him – that he was there. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the fact he wouldn’t be.

“It will be okay, you know,” she heard her father whisper in her ear. “I know it will work out, my sweet girl. It will be okay.”

Unable to speak for fear of choking out a sobbing response, she squeezed her father’s arm and felt him squeeze back. And she laid her head on his shoulder as they walked on in silence.

* * *

When Mass was ended and the priest had sent them on their way, Stella did not wait with her family as she normally did to kiss her neighbours on the cheek and wish them well. Telling her mother she would hurry on home to let Mrs Murphy away, she sneaked out and walked into the frosty air, waving at her neighbours as she went – a quick hand gesture which let them know she would not be stopping for idle chit-chat no matter what the date or whether or not the Lord was born again. She wanted the peace and quiet of her home, somewhere she could let her face fall and show her true emotions, if only for a short while. Hugging her arms to her against the gentle flakes of snow that had begun to fall, she scurried down Abercorn Road and on to her family home where Mrs Murphy was nursing a whiskey and hugging the fire as the embers faded.

“It’s a cold one, Mrs Murphy,” Stella said. “You can head on now. I’ll mind the boys and you get on to your bed. But be careful not to slip out there, there’s snow falling now.”

Mrs Murphy drained her glass of the whiskey, not caring about appearing genteel and refined, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before staggering to her feet. Stella wondered just how much of her daddy’s whiskey their neighbour had treated herself to over the last hour and a half – by the way she staggered to the door it was clear it was more than just ‘one for the road’.

“Merry Christmas, young Stella!” Mrs Murphy cheered as she made her way out into the street.

Stella closed the door after her, took off her coat and made a decision to throw a wee half shovel of coal on the fire. There would be no sleep for another while in the Hegarty household anyway and they might as well be warm as they sat and enjoyed their post-Mass glow.

She was just stoking the fire when she heard a knock at the door. Cursing to herself, convinced it was Mrs Murphy having locked herself out or fallen over or having endured some other mishap, she brushed down her skirt and made for the door.

When she saw Ray standing there, for a moment she wondered if she were imagining things – simply because she wanted it to be true so badly. He was there, the snow softly falling on his shoulders, in his uniform, a bunch of cream carnations in his hand.

She had so much she wanted to say to him that she barely knew where to start. Did she tell him she loved him first? Or that she was angry he had not been at the flat? Did she ask him was it true he was leaving? Did she ask how he had come to be away from the Base? Would he not be in trouble? She didn’t know whether to kiss him or hit him so instead she just stared at him, drinking him in, trying to capture the memory of his face to keep forever.

“I can’t stay long,” he said, gesturing to a pick-up in the street where two other marines sat smoking. “Are you alone? Where are your parents?”

“Mass, they’re on their way back from Mass. Why are you here? What’s going on, Ray? Is it true you’re going?”

He shivered in the snow and she stood, unable to move, barely able to breathe in fact until she heard what he had to say.

“I couldn’t wait,” he said. “When Dusty told me you knew, that you called, that you knew we are leaving, I couldn’t wait.”

Her heart sank. It was true, without a shadow of a doubt. She had heard him utter the words himself and there was no going back.

“I came to find you,” she said, as tears filled her eyes. “I went to the flat. You weren’t there. You said you would be there.”

“I had something to do. Please, Stella. Let me come in for just a moment.”

She stood aside and he stepped through the door and took her hand in his. She realised she was shaking but not from the cold.

“I had to see your father,” he said. “I had to ask him. I needed his permission.”

Stella felt the breath tighten in her chest and the tears that formed started to fall.

“In all my life, I never hoped and never dreamed I would find someone who I could love so much and someone who would love me back too. I can’t be without you, Stella. From the moment we met, you were and are my life. Please do me the
honour of saying you will marry me. Please come with me and be my wife.”

She felt herself fall into his arms, whispering yes again and again into his neck as her tears mingled with the melted snow on his jacket. “Yes, Ray. I will. I will.”

She lifted her head to see her family walking down the street arm in arm and in that second she exchanged a glance with her father which said more than words ever could. He approved. He gave his blessing. And she was going to America.

* * *

Christmas Day dawned and Stella could still hardly believe what had happened. Seán and Michael had bounded into her and Dolores’ room first thing, waking them and shouting that Santa had been, and even though she had barely slept because her mind had been running at a hundred miles an hour since Ray’s proposal, she jumped out of bed and gave Seán a piggyback down the stairs to where the older boys and her mammy and daddy were waiting and the fire had already been lit and the lights on the Christmas
tree were sparkling. Despite the early hour, Kathleen was already dressed in her Sunday best but with her pinny on and the smell of cooking was wafting from the kitchen.