Women and Children First (34 page)

Annie couldn’t stop thinking about the séance and analysing everything the medium had said to her. Whenever she had a quiet moment, she began asking Finbarr questions in her head, and more often than not she found the answers came to her.

‘Can you see your brothers and sister?’ she asked. ‘And your da?’

‘I can’t see them in the way you mean, but I have a sense of them. I know when they are happy and when they are sad, just as I do with you.’

‘Do you eat food up there in heaven?’

‘We don’t need food any more.’

‘How do you spend your time?’

‘We don’t have time here in the way you understand it. Everything is different.’

A part of her kept questioning whether she was simply making up answers in her head, but she was desperate to believe it was Finbarr. If that were true, it would be as if he were in the next room, just out of sight but still with her. He could never finish his education and get a good job, or meet a girl, get married and have a family of his own; his death was still a huge tragedy. But if his spirit was genuinely able to speak to her, the loss would be a little easier to bear.

She told Father Kelly about her deliberations. ‘I ask a question and wait and the answer comes into my head, but how can I tell whether Finbarr put it there or if I imagined it myself?’

‘You’ll only find that out when a spirit tells you something you couldn’t possibly have known otherwise. Is there anything like that you could ask Finbarr?’

Annie racked her brains. ‘I could ask whether it was him who ate the bacon I left out for his father’s supper one night, and not a dog that ran in from the street, as he claimed. But no matter what answer came to me, I wouldn’t know for sure if it was the truth.’

‘I have an idea. Pepita said that you have the second sight yourself. Why don’t we conduct our own séance and you could try to get in touch with my mother? You don’t know anything about her, so if you came up with any fact that is true, it would have to be coming from the spirits. That would prove it.’

‘I couldn’t possibly, Father.’ Annie was embarrassed. She’d feel like a fool. It wouldn’t seem right to intrude in a priest’s personal life like that.

‘I’m interested in finding answers, Annie. You’d be doing me a favour by helping with my research. No matter what is said in the course of the séance, it won’t affect our relationship as priest and parishioner, if that’s what you’re worried about. Will you give it a try?’

‘But I wouldn’t know what to do. Pepita seemed to have some way of getting in touch with spirits, but I wouldn’t have a clue where to start.’

‘I’ve questioned her about that, and she says she just clears her head of other thoughts then asks if any spirits want to communicate. You could try that.’

Annie didn’t like to refuse, but she had serious misgivings. It felt as though it would be sacrilegious to conduct a séance with a priest. She would be uncomfortable if she discovered any personal information about him, but on the other hand she would feel she had let him down if nothing transpired. He seemed dead set on the plan, though, so she agreed to try it one afternoon while Roisin and Ciaran were being looked after by a neighbour. She was dreading it.

At the appointed time, she walked down the step street and along to the house where the Father lived with a housekeeper and a curate. He opened the door and led her into the dining room, a small room dominated by a table, with just enough space for chairs round the sides. He had already closed the shutters and placed a candle in the centre of the table, and as he led her in, he produced some matches and struck one to make a flame.

Annie was trembling as she sat down, but she made an effort to still her thoughts and empty her head of worries. It was hard. The more she tried to imagine her head as an empty space, the more thoughts came flooding into it. What would she make for dinner that night? Was she running out of flour? Did she remember to give her neighbour a change of nappy for Ciaran? Diapers, they called them here.

Father Kelly took both of her hands in his, and she closed her eyes and began to ask the question in her head:
Are there any spirits out there who want to communicate with Father Kelly?

For a while, nothing came to her except a jumble of mixed-up thoughts. She tried to focus on what she knew about the man she was sitting with, and suddenly a thought came through that was louder and clearer than the others.

‘It’s not enough to be good. You have to be perfect.’

She didn’t know where it had come from, but she repeated it out loud.

Father Kelly gasped. ‘That’s exactly what my father used to say to me. Is he there?’

‘I don’t know,’ Annie replied. In her head she asked ‘Are you Father Kelly’s father?’ but no answer came. She couldn’t hear anything else, but she felt she had to say more. ‘He’s very proud of you. You’re a credit to him.’

Father Kelly squeezed her hands, and she could tell he was moved, so she continued. ‘He says you are to look after your own health, that you worry too much about other people instead of yourself.’ In fact, this was something Annie often thought about the Father, but he was nodding and pursing his lips as though it all made sense.

I mustn’t lie to him. He is doing honest research.
She scanned her brain for any possible communication from a spirit, but all she could think about was her own embarrassment, the spluttering of the candle and a niggling pain in her right knee.

‘I’m not getting any more,’ she told him, after a while.

‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘What you did was very impressive for a first attempt. You certainly have the gift, Annie.’

He rose to open the shutters and light filled the room. She saw that one wall was lined with huge books on religious subjects. They had serious titles –
Summa Theologica
,
Apologetics
,
A Dissertation on Miracles
– that made her feel even more of a fraud.

She tried to backtrack. ‘I’m not sure it’s a gift, Father. They’re just thoughts that come into my head. I can’t hear voices. I didn’t hear a man’s voice when you thought it was your father. I just repeated what I was thinking.’

‘But I believe that’s the key to it. That seems to be how it works. I have no doubt at all that my father spoke through you.’ He smiled at her, his eyes twinkling. ‘You hadn’t any idea you were so talented, did you? Was there no one else in the family who had the second sight?’

‘I don’t think so, Father.’ She shook her head, running through all the aunties and grandparents she could remember.

‘I wonder if you might be willing to talk to any of my other parishioners who are struggling to cope with a bereavement? The combination of the wisdom you have gained from your own experience, plus your ability to talk to spirits, could surely help folk through their dark times. Is it something you would consider, Annie? You could hold séances in this room so they don’t have to come to your home. I would sit in when I have time.’

‘Oh, really, Father, I don’t feel I could be any use …’

‘Of course you could! Think how much comfort you have gained from talking to Finbarr. You have the power in your hands to give that same comfort to others who are grieving. It would be a Christian thing to do.’

Despite her unease, Annie promised she would think it over. That evening, once the children were all sound asleep, she told Seamus about it, and he was deeply troubled.

‘You’d be playing with the feelings of vulnerable people going through the worst of times. You could upset them more if you said the wrong thing. What if they felt you hadn’t been able to contact their relative? They’d think “Why is he or she not getting in touch?” and feel slighted. In my view it’s a dangerous game.’

‘I know, but what if I just told them general things – “Your ma is at peace, she’s looking down on you, she wants you to take care o’ yerself.” They might find that helpful.’

‘People will want more. They’ll ask you direct questions and you won’t have the answers so you’ll make things up to try and satisfy them. I don’t like it a bit, Annie. It’s dishonest.’

‘I know. I agree with you.’

The problem was that she didn’t see how she could possibly refuse Father Kelly without appearing selfish. He had made it sound as though it was her Christian duty. It was a troubling dilemma. She wished she had never mentioned to Father Kelly that she talked to Finbarr. She wished she had kept it entirely to herself.

Reg completed the letter to his mother – a simple recitation of the facts followed by a heartfelt apology for the distress he had caused – but found he couldn’t write the one to Florence. He started dozens of times, then ripped the paper into pieces because it sounded wrong. He wanted to send both letters at the same time so that one of them didn’t arrive before the other, but he couldn’t find the words to write Florence’s letter. The problem was that he couldn’t bear for her to hate him, and every time he imagined her reading his letter that was the only reaction he could predict: fury, followed by hatred. The days went by and it was too late to send them with John’s mother and sister. A week passed and still he couldn’t find the words.

After Molly’s initial condemnation, her curiosity got the better of her and she tried to wheedle the story of his assumed name out of Reg, but he saw her in a different light now. She was a dishonest, gossiping troublemaker, and he should never have kissed her or told her anything about Mr Grayling and Miss Hamilton. He resolved to keep his distance, but it was easier said than done when they worked in the same house. She was like a dog with a bone as she tried to get him to talk about things.

‘You should have told Mr Grayling that he’s one to talk about false names when his own paramour did the same thing on the
Titanic
,’ she insisted. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to keep my mouth shut. He’s got some nerve.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of saying anything of the sort.’ Reg glanced at Alphonse. His back was turned but Reg could tell from the set of his shoulders that he was unhappy with the subject of conversation.

‘But what if it turns out he was a murderer? If he killed Mrs Grayling, I would like to know. Maybe none of us are safe in our beds.’

Reg was surprised she was talking this way in front of Alphonse and realised she must have told him all about it. ‘That’s a bit far-fetched, Molly. He’s an upper-class gentleman and they simply don’t do things like that.’

Molly folded her arms and quoted a story that had been in the papers the previous year about a man who murdered his wife’s maid. Reg was caught up in his own thoughts and wasn’t really listening. He couldn’t bring himself to believe Mr Grayling was a murderer, but he knew he had a secret he wanted to protect. That’s why he hadn’t sacked Reg. That’s probably why he felt ‘protective’ towards him – so that Reg wouldn’t go back to that reporter and tell him he’d got it all wrong about Mrs Grayling being on a lifeboat, and what’s more that Mr Grayling had a young girlfriend on the
Titanic
with him. He’d never risk Reg telling anyone about that.

Molly sensed she had lost Reg’s interest. He no longer followed her into cupboards for a quick kiss when she beckoned, and if she joined him on the back step he quickly finished his cigarette and came indoors. All the same he was surprised when, the day before they were due to leave for Long Island, he walked into the kitchen and found her kissing Alphonse. He almost laughed out loud, because Alphonse was at least a foot taller than her and had to bend at an ungainly angle to reach her lips. As she broke away, Molly gave Reg a calculating look.

She wanted me to see that,
he thought.
She wants me to be jealous.

In fact, his main emotion was relief. Thank goodness her attentions were directed elsewhere now. Alphonse looked happy and was humming ‘Sur le pont d’Avignon’ under his breath as he stirred the soup.
Good luck to them
, he thought.

That night, Reg lay in bed thinking about Molly, with all her tricks and subterfuges, and it made him miss Florence terribly. She would never have played any of those games and it wasn’t fair that Reg was being dishonest with her. He couldn’t hope for her forgiveness but he owed her a bit of honesty, if nothing else. He got out of bed, sat at his writing desk and wrote the letter in a great burst of emotion.

Dear Florence,

I’m sorry I haven’t written before. I wanted to write lots of times but I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t bear you to hate me. I wish I could make you understand what I’ve been through but as you know I’m not a big writer.

Do you remember saying to me that when I’m upset I crawl inside my shell and hide from the world? Well, that’s what I’ve been doing. On the
Carpathia,
the man who took the roll call thought I was John, so I pretended to be him. John had died. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a terrible thing to do.

John’s mother and sister came out here to find him and it was only then I realised what I’d done to them. My brain is not working properly. Maybe it got damaged when I was in the water. They are wonderful people and seem to have forgiven me but I have not forgiven myself.

I think about you a lot and wish I could talk to you again but I can’t face getting on a ship. The thought is terrifying. I have no choice but to stay here for now. Anyway, I’m not the person you used to know. I’m very shook up and I don’t know if I’ll ever get better again. I’ve got nothing to offer you any more, but I miss you and will always cherish the memories of the times we had together.

I hope for your sake that you find someone else who can give you everything you deserve. I hope you won’t hate me too much. I will always love you and wish nothing but the best for you.

Your loving Reg.

As soon as he finished, he sealed and addressed the envelope without including a return address. He would give both letters to Mr Frank in the morning. He was staying behind to look after the New York house, so he could arrange for them to be mailed.

Afterwards, Reg couldn’t get to sleep. He lay in bed worrying about the effect his letters would have. He tried not to think of Florence’s face when she received it. He couldn’t bear to hurt her. His younger brothers would feel terribly betrayed. Maybe he should have written separately to them as well. And goodness knows what his mother would do. She’d probably disown him.

On top of his concerns about the letters, he had a feeling of foreboding about the journey to Long Island. He hoped the crossing wouldn’t take too long. All his worries swirled around his head, and when he eventually drifted off he dreamed that he was standing in a small boat as it sank inexorably beneath him. No one on shore could hear him even though he was screaming at the top of his voice.

Reg woke up with a dry throat and covered in sweat. Could he have yelled in his sleep? It felt as though he might have. The dream seemed familiar and he realised he had had it many times since arriving in New York. It was a landscape that hovered in his subconscious even during waking hours.

Mr Grayling had two automobiles and he and Miss Hamilton were travelling in the front one, while five members of staff, including Reg, Molly and Alphonse, came along behind. They headed downtown through the New York traffic onto a huge bridge that crossed high above the East River, just near the quays where the
Carpathia
had docked. Suspension cables curved from two huge turrets at either end. It was a stunning construction and Reg turned from side to side as they crossed so he could take in the views on all sides.

‘That’s us on Long Island,’ Molly announced as they drove off the bridge. ‘My mom lives in Brooklyn, pretty close to here. My school was just over there, at the end of that road.’ She pointed as they drove past.

‘This is Long Island?’ Reg queried. ‘We don’t have to go on a boat?’

‘No, silly. Just the bridge. Long Island is huge. It’s way more than a hundred miles long, all the way up to Montauk Point. It’ll be at least two hours until we get to the summer house. You’ll like it there. It’s right on the beach.
You
like it, don’t you, Alphonse? I can’t wait to get away from the hot city.’

Alphonse shrugged. ‘It’s OK. Good seafood. We have our own pots for lobster in the bay.’

The buildings were thinning out and Reg could see green fields and trees. The air smelled cleaner and fresher already as they sped away from the city smog. They stopped at a diner for luncheon, and Reg ordered a hot dog. He’d developed a taste for them.

‘Did you know they have a hot dog eating contest on Coney Island every summer?’ Molly asked. ‘You could sign up, Reg, but I warn you that the guy who won last year ate sixty-two hot dogs in ten minutes. Think you could beat that?’

Reg smiled. ‘I doubt it.’

‘Oh look, they’ve got Pepsi-Cola! I’m going to try one of those. Did you know it’s supposed to be good for you? It gives you energy.’ She ordered the drink and when it arrived, she took a long slurp. ‘Taste it, Reg.’ She flicked the straw towards him. ‘It’s yummy.’

Reg was curious, so he took a quick sip and found the drink was pleasantly sweet and refreshing.

‘Get one for yourself if you want,’ Molly suggested. ‘Mr Grayling gave Alphonse lots of cash to buy our lunch.’

Reg did as she suggested and drank a whole glassful. He wasn’t sure if it gave him energy or not, but he felt relaxed as they continued the journey and he smelled the first hint of salt in the air. The ocean came into view, a deceptively warm shade of blue stretching out to the horizon, quite different from the oil-black, freezing water in which Reg had almost drowned back in April. All the same he shivered.

The houses along the shore were further apart now, and between them and the ocean there was a pale sand beach licked by frilly white waves. Small groups of bathers were paddling in the water, or sitting on the beach shaded by huge umbrellas.

At last they pulled up outside a white, two-storey clapboard house surrounded by a lawn and a low white picket fence. Like the house in New York it was square and boxy, but there was a long verandah on the ocean side and the garden butted right onto the beach. It was a peaceful spot, not overlooked by any other houses and when the driver turned off the engine, the only sound was the shushing of waves on the sand.

Molly jumped out of the car. ‘Come and look at the beach, Reg. The water’s lovely. I’ve brought a bathing suit. Maybe we can go swimming later. Do you like swimming?’ Alphonse nudged her in the ribs and she stopped. ‘What? What do you want?’

Reg hurriedly picked up his bag. ‘I think I’ll just go in and unpack. Thanks all the same.’

As he walked off, he heard Alphonse remonstrating with her. ‘He was on the
Titanic
three months ago. You think he wants to jump in the water and have a swim? You must be crazy.’

‘He might. How would I know?’ she replied in a sulky tone.