The First Time I Said Goodbye (27 page)

“Eileen, you can’t tar everyone with the same brush!” said Kathleen.

“But all the way over there? Jesus – the critter was over there and it was nothing like he said. No nice house, no lovely garden. She was in some tenement with him and his family and countless other families –”

“Sounds no different to life here, Eileen,” Kathleen said.

“But it was worse – and him, he didn’t know what to do with himself. First night there, by all accounts, he goes out on the drink and he comes home and beats seven shades out of her. And his family, sure they were as bad as each other – she was treated like no more than a slave. You’d get better treatment in the cotton fields. He never let her leave the house – and when she did, he’d lay into her again.” Mrs Murphy blessed herself again, throwing her eyes once more heavenward. “It was only by the grace of God that the Davidsons had family in New York and they were able to get her out of there. And the poor critters have themselves pawned to within an inch of their lives to get her back. She’s in an awful way, I hear. Awful.”

Stella felt the bile rise in her stomach. She felt for Molly, so far from home – and how she had left so full of dreams, so convinced she was doing the right thing, and she felt as if she might burst into tears right there and then.

“Word is, they were lucky not to be getting her home in a box.”

“Eileen,” Kathleen said as softly as she could, “it’s a terrible story, I know. Sure I saw Mrs Davidson this morning myself – but this is not how it ends for everyone. For goodness’ sake, there are plenty local girls have gone over there and found themselves as happy as they could want to be. And there are plenty local men just as bad as yer man – there’s no need to be scaremongering.”

“Well, all I’m saying is that I wouldn’t take the risk if it were my daughter,” Mrs Murphy said, sniffing and reaching her hand into the biscuit barrel. “They were lucky they had family over there – but do you, Kathleen? If the same were to happen to our wee Stella here would you be able to get her home?”

“Eileen, it’s not going to happen,” Kathleen said, taking the biscuit barrel from her and placing it back on the shelf.

“Ray isn’t like that,” Stella blurted out. “He would never be like that. He’s a good man. An honest man.”

“You saw young Molly before her wedding, didn’t you?” Mrs Murphy asked, a slight ominous tone to her voice. “Did she think her David was a good man and an honest man too? I bet she did.”

Stella looked down at her cup. She knew that Mrs Murphy was stirring in the way that only Mrs Murphy could, and that nothing she could say would deter the old bat from the notion that she was right and everyone else was wrong. Her urge to defend Ray to the hilt was overwhelmed by the sense of futility which always came with getting into a discussion with Mrs Murphy.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she offered, hoping that would be enough to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion.

“Trust me, my girl,” said Murphy as she drained her cup and stood up. “I know a lot more than you think I know. I’m a lot older than you – I’ve seen more. I’ve seen the world and you young ones, you think you know it all. But you know what, you know so little. It’s not all fairytale endings.”

“Eileen, I think it’s high time you left. It’s getting late and you’ve said enough.”

“Oh, I’m going,” Mrs Murphy sniffed. “I know where I’m not wanted. And there was me, only trying to help. Well, sure, maybe I won’t help any more and she can just get on with things – but let me tell youse, if it all goes wrong, don’t come running
to me.”

“Eileen, pet, when have we ever come running to you for anything anyway?” Kathleen said,
shooing her neighbour out of the door before turning to look back at Stella, who felt numb from the exchange.

She was horrified at the thought of what had happened to her friend – and her stomach felt queasy. She felt fiercely defensive of Ray – even though none of this had anything to do with him and she knew that he loved and cherished her. But, perhaps more than all that, she felt scared. Kathleen pulled her into a hug and she let the embrace of her mother soothe her.

“My darling girl, you are to pay no heed to that woman. Do you hear me?” Kathleen said as she brushed Stella’s hair back from her face and kissed the top of her head. “She just likes a gossip and the more salacious the better. She no more cares about Molly Davidson or you than she cares about the man in the moon. She is just one of those misfortunate creatures who like to be the bearer of bad news – and can’t wait to see everyone else’s reactions. You know your Ray, don’t you, pet? You know you can trust him. And let me tell you this, my darling baby girl, should you ever need to come home, ever, we will do everything we can to get you back to us. You are never to be afraid to ask. You are never to question it. You just say you want to be home and we will sell everything belonging to us if we need to.”

Stella nodded, her emotions divided. She was both comforted by her mother’s words and unsettled as well. Would she ever need to come home? Could she, like Molly, have got it all wrong?

She went to bed wishing she could pick up the phone and call Ray – just to hear his voice, just to hear him reassure her that everything would be okay. Just to tell her she was being silly having any kind of doubts because they were stronger than that and to hear him tell her of the house in the suburbs, with the bathroom and the bedrooms, and soft eiderdown quilts and a roaring fire in a spacious den and a kitchen that was state of the art. And how he would always look after her as if she were the most precious thing in his world. But she couldn’t talk to him so she sat by her bed instead and wrote a letter, pouring out her thoughts and feelings, her worries and her hopes, and then she changed, climbed under the blankets and looked out the window into the night sky. He was there somewhere, she knew it, and she was foolish to ever doubt him. Nonetheless as she slept her dreams were fitful and when she woke the next morning she found herself dressing and heading straight to visit Molly.

Chapter 23

I miss you. I can say no more.

* * *

Mrs Davidson looked surprised to see Stella at her front door. Stella herself was surprised to be there. She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, proffering a bag of apples she had bought at the market that morning. “I brought these,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to bring.”

“Come in, pet,” Mrs Davidson said, leading her into the hall.

There was a silence about the house that seemed to match the seriousness of the situation. Stella was aware of a whispered conversation in the scullery as she walked past. Mrs Davidson led her upstairs to the bedroom she had been in, not that long ago, chatting excitedly to Molly about her wedding and the plans she had for her happy-ever-after.

“She had a decent night – well, compared to the night before. She’s still quite sore – but it’s her heart that is broken more than anything. She hasn’t spoken much, doll – but maybe she would talk to you, for her father and I can’t get through to her.” Mrs Davidson’s eyes were pleading – as if she were at the end of her tether. She didn’t look as if she had slept much herself.

Stella said she would do her best but already she felt a little out of her depth and started to wonder had she been wise to visit in the first place.

Mrs Davidson opened the door. Molly’s bedroom was in complete darkness. Mrs Davidson walked across the room and pulled the curtains open.

“You have a visitor,” she said to the lump in the bed. There was no movement. She opened the window slightly. “A bit of fresh air will do you good, pet,” she said and again there was no response.

Stella took a seat on the wooden chair beside the bed and noticed the bottle of pills on the small wooden table and the glass of water.

“Molly, it’s only me, Stella. I just called to see how you are.”

“I told my mother I didn’t want visitors,” Molly muttered, her voice muffled by the blankets hauled up around her face.

“She thought it might do you good,” Stella said. “She thought it might brighten you a bit. I just wanted to see how you were.”

There was a snort of derision from under the blanket. “The talk of the town, am I?” Molly said, her voice breaking. “The silly wee girl who had to be rescued? Who made an eejit of herself running off for a new life and coming back battered and bruised?”

The grief was evident in her voice – the shame and the embarrassment.

“No one . . . no one thinks you’re an eejit,” said Stella. “You weren’t to know. How could you have? Look, Molly, if anyone understands it’s me. Here I am waiting to run off into the sunset myself.”

“Well, I hope you’ll fare better than me,” Molly said, turning in the bed to show the fading bruises across her face and the fading cut from across her eyebrow.

Stella closed her eyes, so as to stop herself from gasping, and opened them again to see Molly looking at her square in the face, her eyes filled with tears.

“I’ve been such a fool,” she said. “I believed it all. That he loved me. That we would be happy. That what we would have there was better than what I had here and that it would all work out. I was smug about it, I admit. I just didn’t think.”

Stella reached out to her friend and held her hand as she cried.

“I made my vows in good faith,” Molly said. “I meant every word. The richer and poorer and the ‘in sickness and in health’ and even the better and worse. Was I wrong to run? Was this not the worse bit? Am I a sinner, Stella? Did I not take it seriously?”

The childish enthusiasm Stella had witnessed in this very room not more than a few months ago was gone – it was replaced by a pitiful sadness that made Stella’s very heart ache.

“No one thinks you’re a sinner, pet. Not even the Lord himself would expect you to stay there – not when he was hurting you like that.”

Molly reached up to her face, revealing her bruised hands. “He told me he would kill me,” she said softly. “That I was worth nothing to him and that he would kill me if I disobeyed him. I didn’t, Stella. I didn’t, I swear.”

“I know,” Stella said, forcing the words from her mouth as the shock seeped into her pores. “I know. You will get over this. I promise. You will be back on your feet before you know it – back at the dances and smiling like you were.”

Molly rolled over in bed again, facing the wall and pulled the blanket gingerly back over her face as if every movement sent a shockwave of pain through her body. The conversation was over and Stella sat for a moment before walking back down the stairs to the hopeful face of Mrs Davidson, who seemed to be waiting for a miracle.

“I imagine it will take a bit of time,” Stella said, feeling strangely out of place talking to the older woman in this way.

“Thanks, pet,” Mrs Davidson replied and Stella made her way back out onto the street not sure how she felt or why she had come in the first place.

She walked along Carlisle Road and glanced up to where the flat was before pulling her coat more tightly around her against the cold and walking home.

Dolores was helping with the washing when she arrived. “And where were you off to on this cold morning? You couldn’t have been sneaking off to see your fancy man since he is on the other side of the world.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Stella said dejectedly, setting about helping with the work.

“You’ve a terrible sour face on you,” Dolores teased. “But are you not going to ask me why I’ve such a smile on mine?”

Stella looked at her sister, who was beaming from ear to ear, and felt relieved that the focus of the conversation was being shifted from her.

“Well, why then?” she asked.

“I’ve met someone,” Dolores said. “At the dance last night. Hugh Doherty his name is, and Stella, he’s lovely.”

Smiling back and getting on with her work, Stella enjoyed listening to her sister’s tales if for no other reason than to distract her from her own thoughts. No good could come of them at all.

Chapter 24

Am I making it worse? All this time. I don’t know what else to do, Ray. I feel helpless – and hopeless and I just hope you will forgive me.

* * *

Derry, June 2010

I woke to the shrill ring of my phone, although it took me a while to register what was going on. My head was still swimming just a little after the excesses of the night before even though I had been relatively sensible and had drunk the requisite pint of water before retiring for the night on Sam’s instructions. I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep – I knew that it was light but as it was summer and the dawn started to crack shortly before five, that was no real indicator. My eyes and my brain still bleary, I reached for my cell and made several attempts to answer it, swiping my fingers – which appeared to be still asleep – across the screen and swearing under my breath. When it rang off, I slumped back on my pillow – focused on the screen and saw it was a missed call from Craig. A vague memory of the message I had sent him before I drifted off to sleep crept into my mind, but it didn’t make my heart sink. Looking at the time, I saw it had gone six. I had sent the message at two. He had taken four hours to call. It either meant, I reckoned, that he was so devastated by the news it had taken him four hours to compose himself enough to call me, or that he cared so little he had let it slide for a while. My bets were on the latter. Or somewhere in between. I didn’t regret sending the message – not one ounce. It had to be said and it had to be sent – and I felt, I dunno, even in my still semi-conscious state, relieved to have finally done it – to have pulled that Band-Aid off once and for all and exposed what had been so very rotten in the state of our relationship for so very long.