The Mersey Girls (46 page)

And all the time she was bustling round making beds and sweeping floors and cooking, she told herself that she was not excited, that she was looking forward to seeing an old friend, showing him round, but that was all. But she knew it was not all, of course. She knew that having Roddy here would complete the scene, that once he was here she would know what she should do. It was not so much a matter of asking his opinion, it was more seeing how they got on together in this place.

If they quarrelled here, she did not know what she would do, but they would not stay. Life without Roddy wasn’t bearable, but then life with him had not been any great treat, so somewhere along the line they had gone wrong. This was their chance to put things right, to make it work, and if they made a mess of it, then . . .

Then we don’t deserve each other, or happiness, or any other good thing, Linnet decided, wielding the rolling pin with a fierceness not at all in keeping with her usual cooking methods. She had some paste left over and was rolling it out, sprinkling it with sugar and currants, folding it over several times and making shortcakes. Then she brushed the cakes with the top of the milk so that they would shine and popped them in the oven. And all the time her mind was miles away, with Roddy. She wondered what train he would catch and whether he was already on his way or still wandering around Dublin. She wondered what he would think of it all when he finally arrived in Cahersiveen. She wished that it hadn’t decided to rain because it would mean he would arrive soaked and cross and that would make Linnet cross and before they knew it, they would be quarrelling again.

Outside, in the quiet farmyard, a hen croodled away to herself, the rain pattered on the slates overhead, someone crossed the yard. Immediately Linnet was alert. She ran over to the window but as she was trying to press her nose to the rain-spattered pane there was a knock and she flew across to the back door and tugged it open.

He stood there, grinning at her. His hair was sleeked to his head, his face was wet . . . she flung her arms round him, hugging him breathlessly. She had not known she had felt alone here but she had, she had!

‘Linnet! Oh, Linnet!’

She dragged him into the kitchen whilst his wet mouth was still searching for hers, and then they kissed, whilst the rain on his duffle coat was absorbed by her thin cotton dress and they clung closer and closer, murmuring love-words.

‘Oh, Roddy, I didn’t know how badly I’ve missed you till this moment,’ Linnet said at last, standing back from him. ‘Take off your wet coat at once before you catch your death!’

‘Take off your wet frock before you catch yours,’ Roddy said, grinning, but he struggled out of his coat as he spoke and handed it to Linnet, who hung it on the back door. ‘I’m a thoughtless feller – you’d best go upstairs, get changed.’

Linnet looked down at her pink gingham dress and laughed.

‘You’re right, I’m as wet as you, pretty near. Oh, Roddy, I’m that glad you’ve come – what d’you think?’

‘Of what? The countryside’s rare pretty, and the house – what I’ve seen of it – seems a good solid buildin’.’

Linnet shook his arm. ‘You know what I mean! Bring your bag and I’ll show you round and later I’ll take you to the Kellys’, where you’ll be lodging. Then whilst you unpack I’ll go and put a dry frock on. And after that we can talk.’

Downstairs again, clean and dry, Linnet bustled round making tea and talking whilst Roddy sat in one of the easy chairs and watched her with such contentment glowing from his eyes that Linnet felt tears come to her own. What had been the matter with her these past months? She had found fault with Roddy, criticised, slapped him down, when in truth all she wanted was his love. But now, with the new serenity she had found at Ivy Farm, she could see all too clearly the tensions and stresses, the uncertainties, which had made her so unfair to her love.

A part of me was proud of living in a big, posh house and having Mr Cowan wanting to marry me, she thought with deep shame. I kept seeing these little pictures of me as his wife, driving around in the car, going to all the big shops, all my old friends so envious. But I never thought about the other side of it – him as my husband. And as soon as I did, as soon as Roddy’s mam made me look, then I knew I couldn’t go through with it.

She poured the tea and carried the two cups over to where Roddy sat, but when she would have handed him his cup and gone over to the other chair he shook his head reprovingly at her.

‘What’s wrong wi’ this chair?’ he asked, catching hold of her and pulling her onto his lap. ‘What’s wrong wi’ a bit o’ cuddlin’, eh, queen?’

‘You’ll spill my tea,’ Linnet squeaked as the cup rocked perilously. ‘This is my second clean frock today, don’t go spilling my tea, Roddy!’

He took the cup from her and set it down on the floor, beside his own. ‘Shan’t spill a drop. Oh, Linnet, isn’t this lovely? A big, clean kitchen, the stove mutterin’ away, the rain patterin’ on the winder pane, and – and just you an’ me.’

‘Yes, it is lovely,’ Linnet said. She buried her face in the side of his neck. ‘The whole house is lovely, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. But it’s only lovely because you’re in it,’ Roddy said frankly.

‘Could you live here, with me, Roddy?’ Linnet said dreamily. ‘Oh, and I didn’t mean to say that until you’d seen the farm and met my sister Lucy . . . oh what a fool I am!’

‘I could live anywhere if you was there, queen,’ Roddy said, stroking her arm. ‘I could live in Africa or – or the Arctic, if you was there.’

‘Silly! I’m serious, I mean could you learn to farm and live out here a long way from – well, from Liverpool and Peel Square and so on?’

‘I don’t know whether I’d be any use at it, but I’d ’ave a go,’ Roddy said. ‘I ain’t afraid o’ work, no seaman is. But someone ‘ud ’ave to tell me what needed doin’.’

‘Ye-es, but if they told you . . . ?’

‘Wait an’ see ’ow I shapes up,’ Roddy advised her. ‘Now ’ad you better introduce me to this sister o’ yours?’

‘They’ll be coming in for tea in a few minutes, you’ll meet Lucy and the others then. Tell you what, I’m learning to milk a cow, d’you want to come and watch me have a go?’

He laughed but stood up, tipping her off his lap. Then he put his arm round her waist and gave her a quick squeeze and a kiss on the soft side of her face. ‘You’re on! Where’s this ’ere cow what’s goin’ to let you ’ave a go at ’er?’

‘She’s waiting at the gate by now, to be let through. She’s a dear little thing . . . come on, then, no point in putting coats on, it’s a short run to the cowshed. Follow me!’

Together they dashed out into the rainy yard, across it and into the cowshed. Linnet caught Roddy’s arm.

‘I’ll bring her in, you wait here.’

Roddy waited and in rather less than a minute Linnet reappeared, leading a small red and white cow on a rope halter.

‘She’s the easiest to milk,’ she said as she was tying the cow in her stall. ‘She’s quite happy to chew the cud whilst I try to bring the milk down. Now you watch, Roddy – it’s harder than it looks.’

She fetched a milking stool and a bucket, squatted down, leaned her head against the little cow’s red and white side and began to tug the long teats firmly through her fingers. The milk squirted into the bucket and Linnet turned her head and grinned lopsidedly at him.

‘What d’you think of that? Good, aren’t I?’

‘You are,’ Roddy said, very impressed. ‘Can I have a go?’

‘In a minute, when I’ve got an inch or two in the bucket,’ Linnet said. ‘Oh, Roddy, it’s so nice to see you again – you don’t know how horribly I’ve missed you!’

‘What I don’t understand, chuck, is why you should miss me worse ’ere than you did in Liverpool,’ Roddy said practically. ‘You never saw me for weeks at a time when I were at sea and when we did meet we quarrelled.’

‘Yes, and it was mostly my fault,’ Linnet said. ‘And before I left I knew it was you I wanted, that if I had you . . . if we were really married, I mean . . . then we’d probably never quarrel again. So leaving the city felt like leaving you, and it was horrid, and I missed you all the time.’

Roddy crouched down beside the cow and kissed the side of Linnet’s face again. The cow rolled her eyes and shifted uneasily; it was clear she did not approve of people canoodling whilst she was giving milk.

‘Oh, Linnet, you don’t know ’ow I’ve longed to ’ear you say that! And you mean it this time, d’you? Rain or shine, wet or fine, you’ll marry me?’

‘Course I will,’ Linnet assured him. She squirted a final squirt into the bucket and turned towards him. ‘If you want me to I’ll come back to Liverpool with you, but if you felt you could stay here it would make me – and Lucy – ever so happy.’

‘If there’s work for me, and a place for us . . .’ Roddy began, then pulled Linnet roughly into his arms. The stool tipped against the bucket, the bucket rolled noisily onto its side, the cow mooed and kicked out at the bucket . . . but Linnet and Roddy were oblivious. Tightly clasped in each other’s arms they were kissing with total concentration. In fact they did not notice the figure in the doorway until Lucy took a step forward and cleared her throat.

‘Hmm-mm! Excuse me, Linnet, but do I take it Roddy’s arrived? Because if the feller who’s trying to gobble you up isn’t Roddy Sullivan then I’ve a word or two to say to the pair of ye!’

Things moved at an amazing speed once they got started. After Lucy had been introduced to Roddy the three of them had gone all round the entire farm. They had to walk a good distance since they owned the land from the lough’s edge to the mountain top and Roddy wanted to see everything. And then Lucy had to explain to him how the farm had been run when her grandfather had been alive, how it had been run since, and how – she hoped – it would be run in the future, by herself, Linnet and Roddy plus the farmhands.

‘And what will ’appen when you’re wed?’ Roddy asked at one point. ‘Because you will be wed, an’ sooner rather than later, I’d bet.’

Lucy smiled at Roddy. He was a nice young man, as nice as Mrs Kelly had expected him to be, but that did not give him the right to pry into her private life. Linnet, she supposed, must have told him about the ardent Peder and everyone’s freely expressed expectations that the two of them would marry.

‘I’m not thinking of marrying just yet,’ she assured him. ‘I guess you’ve heard I’ve a young man, but I’m not sure . . . But if I married and moved away then you and Linnet would have Kellach and the Kellys, though not Caitlin, of course. But as I said I’m not thinking of marrying yet.’

‘Well, look, Lucy,’ Roddy said, having apparently thought this over. ‘We’ll strike a bargain, the three of us. Linnet and I will work ’ere, doin’ our very best to learn farmin’ ways, for six months. We’ll ’ave to marry, because . . .’ Roddy blushed, to Lucy’s considerable amusement. ‘Well, because it’s only right, see? And if we don’t get wed, we’d mebbe quarrel like we did at ’ome. But we won’t mess you about, we’ll work as ‘ard as we know, won’t we, Linnie? And at the end of six months we’ll see ’ow we’ve gorron. If we’re no good to you, we’ll slope off back to the Pool, but if we’ve managed to be useful, we’ll stay wi’ you and wi’ Ivy Farm. Is it a bargain?’

And Lucy, agreeing, felt lighter of heart than she had done since her grandfather’s death. Ivy Farm had a chance, and so did she – so did they, come to that.

‘But Linnet’s already very useful,’ she told Roddy. ‘And I’ve a feeling that you’ll have the will to learn and the strength to stick it. So I’m thinking we’ll be all right, the three of us.’

Caitlin married Declan and became Mrs Franklin the September after Roddy had taken up residence with the Kellys. She was blissfully happy in her rooms above the grocer’s shop in Cahersiveen and sang the praises of married life loudly and meaningfully to the Murphy girls when she visited the farm.

Despite Roddy’s words, he and Linnet had not been able to marry as quickly as they would have liked for two reasons; one was that from the moment they woke until they fell into bed each night, every day was as full as an egg. Because they were new to the work they found themselves aching in every limb as muscles they had never known they possessed came into play, and their brains ached, too, from taking in all the information which Lucy, Kellach and the Kellys bombarded them with. Another, more important reason was that Mr Sullivan had a stroke about a month after Roddy arrived at the farm and though he lingered for five or six weeks, he had then died.

Roddy and Linnet had returned to Liverpool for the funeral and had been astonished at Mrs Sullivan’s well of grief and at how she seemed to have grown small and old in their absence.

‘Some folk might ’ave thought ’e weren’t much good,’ Mrs Sullivan said sadly, as they returned home after the funeral to have a bit of a wake in the tiny house in Peel Square. ‘But ’e were kind to me an’ the kids, which is more’n you can say for all the old fellers. An’ ’e gave me what ’e could – never spent it on ’isself whiles we went wit’out. So give ’im a chance to settle in ’is grave afore you wed, our Roddy. Let your marriage wait on ’im, until I’m over it all a bit an’ can come over to Ireland an’ do me part in the ceremony. Don’t be rushin’ into things with your mam not there to shed a tear an’ wish you luck.’

And somehow, it wasn’t so hard to comply with her wishes when they were so very happy, and so hearteningly busy, too.

‘I never thought we could go on so well without being married,’ Linnet told Roddy as the weeks slid into months. ‘Besides, I wouldn’t want to upset your mam, Roddy. She was more than a mother to me, she was a friend as well, and I want her at my wedding. Only – only I hope we won’t have to wait
too
long.’

Winter came and Christmas was celebrated, the twins’ first Christmas together. It was a quiet time for farming and Linnet and Roddy were by now, Lucy told them, indispensable to the welfare of Ivy Farm.

‘But you’ve waited and worked hard and thought of others, and now you really should get married yourselves,’ she said firmly one evening as the three of them sat round the fire doing the bookwork. Or rather Linnet was writing the figures down, Roddy was dictating them and Lucy was toasting bread in front of the flames. ‘I don’t see why you should have to wait until the spring, write to your mam, Roddy, and tell her that you’re getting married in February. Send her money for her tickets and say we expect her a week before the wedding and afterwards, for another week at least. Will she bring the small children with her?’