A bout of flu no doubt Mr Hart had tutted, his tone suggesting she shouldn’t have come in to the office at all spreading her germs. He sent her home. She’d sat with her aching head resting against the window of the bus as it wound its way through the streets to the stop closest to home. She could do without getting sick. Her plan had been to race down to Dawson Street on her lunch break to pick up the copy of Modern Bride she’d ordered in. It was due to arrive today. Mammy had offered to sew her wedding dress and she wanted to get some ideas as to the latest styles.
The wedding dress could wait, and she shut her eyes briefly willing the bus to hurry up. All she wanted was to sleep.
How she made it up the stairs to her bed was a blur. So too were the events that transpired from then until her fever broke and she found herself in a hospital bed. She was in a ward with only one other bed. It was occupied by a young girl of about six or seven years who hailed from a small village in County Clare. She was tucked up in the bed across from Una. Her large eyes in her head showed she was very poorly. It was a mystery to Una as to what she was doing there.
It was explained by one of the kindlier nurses, her voice muffled by the mask she wore, she had Scarlet Fever and was to stay in the Cork Fever Hospital in isolation for the next three to four weeks at least. Where she’d caught the illness was a mystery.
Her only visitors during that time were her Mam and her Dad, they came once a week but even they were not allowed in to see her. They could merely stand at the glass and tell her the news. Mam told her they’d burned her bedding on the advice of the doctor who’d made the diagnosis before she was whisked away in the ambulance. Neither they nor Aideen was showing any symptoms thank the lord. Leo too, was fighting fit. They sent their love.
Una was grateful for those visits. They were her only link with the outside world. Her world consisted of hushed, no-nonsense voices, an all-pervasive smell of carbolic soap, and scratchy sheets. She knew too her mam would struggle bringing herself to the less than salubrious part of the city where the hospital was located. This wasn’t out of snobbery but rather fear. Fear of catching something like the dreaded tuberculosis which was raging through the city. The rest of the wards in the hospital would have been full of people afflicted with the illness.
It was such a strange time, she was sick yes, but still lucid enough to be lonely, homesick and terribly bored. What it must have been like for the little girl who shared the small space with her Una couldn’t comprehend. To be so little and so far away from home must have been terrifying. The nurse had confided that the girl Maggie, had rheumatoid fever on top of the scarlet fever and would be staying longer than Una. If indeed Maggie had felt frightened by the alien space, she found herself in she never said. In fact she barely strung a sentence together the whole time Una was there despite their proximity.
With nothing else in which to occupy her time Leo filled her thoughts. It was a form of torture not to be able to see him and she missed Aideen terribly even if she had been a moody mare this last while. She’d felt a distance growing between her and her sister over the course of the year. Una put it down to the difference in their circumstances. She was a young woman with a fiancé while Aideen, despite several advances had declined all her potential suitors. She was too picky by far and if she weren’t careful, she’d wind up an old spinster Una would think plucking at her sheets in irritation.
She thought it likely, although she’d never ask, and Aideen would never say that she was envious of her situation. She was jealous of the way in which Leo took up so much of her time these days. It was time previously reserved for each other and of course Leo, too had been as much a part of Aideen’s world as he had Una’s, from the time they were ten years old. The old saying three’s a crowd was true, however. One couldn’t conduct a romance with a third party in tow. Perhaps her sister had felt pushed out. She put herself in her sister’s shoes and decided that this must be the case.
She’d been so caught up in her own love affair she hadn’t spared the time to think about Aideen and how it must have affected her. She’d merely found her twins moodiness a selfish irritant designed to dampen her own happiness.
It was the way of life though wasn’t it? Things had to change, people grew up and fell in love. They got married and started families of their own. She made up her mind that she would talk to Aideen once she was well and home once more, to explain all of this to her. Tell her that just because she was going to start a new chapter with Leo didn’t mean that there wouldn’t always be a special place reserved for Aideen. They were part of each other after all. Two halves that made a whole.
Yes she resolved, she would smooth the waters over once she got home.
In between these musings she’d lie on her bed fed up with herself and her bland surroundings. She’d imagine where Leo was and what he’d be doing at different times during the day. Her mind would drift toward their wedding. No date had been set but still she’d imagine herself in a dress similar to that worn by Elizabeth Taylor in her May wedding to Conrad Hilton Jr. Aideen as bridesmaid would wear blue, it was her favourite colour. She’d get swept along in a tide of images depicting horse-drawn carriages and magnificent cathedrals where she and Leo would exchange vows.
She was not delusional though she and Leo were not royalty or Hollywood stars and the reality was her dress would be handmade by her mother. It would not be as voluminous as Elizabeth Taylor’s shimmery, satin affair but it would be pretty. The gown would be made with the sort of love money could never buy and she would feel every inch the beautiful bride. The ceremony would take place in St Peter’s Church where they had attended Mass for as long as they’d resided in Phibsborough—forever! As for her carriage, she had her fingers crossed Dad would be able to borrow his boss’s Bentley to drive her and Aideen to the church.
A honeymoon would be nice too. Una hadn’t seen much of life outside of Dublin. She didn’t think the odd stay down at her cousin Janet’s near Wexford counted for much. Connemara would be pretty, she’d seen pictures of it in springtime in a magazine when the purple heather had formed a glorious carpet around the lakes. Or if they saved enough money, they could cross the water and visit Wales, she had a second cousin who lived on a farm there.
Una would flush as she thought about what her nights might be like on her honeymoon. The lovemaking was something she didn’t know much about. She and Aideen had gleaned what little information they did have from the whispered conversations of girls at school. It was something she suspected that while initially a little frightening would ultimately be something she’d enjoy very much—if those yearnings she felt when she and Leo kissed were anything to go by!
The time passed as time does and the day came when Una left that white walled hospital room. She felt sad to be leaving little Maggie on her own but she couldn’t wait to escape the confines and she didn’t look back as she walked away from the building. Her dad picked her up in his new Anglia. This was something that had changed in the time she’d been in hospital. The family now had a car. It made Una aware that while she had been shut away life had indeed gone on.
The car was her dad’s pride and joy and he gave her a running commentary of the mechanics behind it as they pootled home. Mam he mentioned in between explaining how the gears worked, had organised a party tea. A celebration of their girl being well and coming home. Una walked through their front door already tired from the exertions of leaving the hospital and listening to her dad. She was pale and thin and felt like she’d been away for months, not weeks, but she was home.
She was greeted warmly and if things were off with Aideen and Leo she didn’t pick up on it. She never saw her mammy’s worried frown as she glanced from each of her daughters and back over at Leo. Nor did she hear the forced joviality in her dad’s voice as he tried to ward off the storm he knew was coming. The illness had left her drained and oblivious to the shifting sands of their relationship. They’d been sifted through and redefined while she’d been in hospital
. But she knew nothing of this.
Chapter 27
Present Day
The clatter of Aisling’s teaspoon against her saucer as she placed her cup back down startled Una from her story. It was jarring in the silence, a quiet only broken by Una’s murmuring voice. ‘Do you know, even thinking about my spell in hospital conjures up the smell of carbolic soap. I couldn’t get the stench of it from my nostrils for the longest time.’
Aisling stared into her empty teacup, there were no tea leaves at the bottom and she didn’t believe in that sort of thing, anyway. Nevertheless she had a fair idea what was coming. She was so caught up in the emotion of what she’d been listening to, she hadn’t been aware of her eyes beginning to smart with unshed tears at the unfairness of Una’s story. She blinked hard to ward them off.
‘Leo and Aisling waited until I was back to full health before they said anything.’
It was no good the blinking didn’t work, and a tear rolled down Aisling’s cheek, it was as she’d feared. She swiped it away feeling a surge of anger for this woman, a virtual stranger whose life she now knew intimately at the events that had unfurled fifty years ago.
‘It was Leo who told me it was Aideen he’d loved all along. He called for me a week or so after I got home. The fresh air would do me good he said suggesting a stroll alongside the canal. It must have been a Saturday because Aideen wasn’t home. I can remember seeing Mam’s face, pale and anxious as she told me to be sure to do my coat up. I put it down to her worrying about my health, but I think she had an inkling that things weren’t as they’d been between Leo and me. There was a tension between us as we set off. A sudden awareness on my part that something had changed between us over the course of my hospital stay. I wondered why he didn’t reach for my hand like he always did but I didn’t say anything. When he suggested we sit down on a bench not far from the spot where we’d shared that first kiss I was grateful for the opportunity to rest. The short walk had left me breathless and my limbs felt like dead weights. I’d been told to expect this, it would be a long time before my physical health returned to what it was. It wasn’t just my physical self that had been damaged though, my brain too seemed to struggle to process things for a long time after I left the hospital. I couldn’t hold onto thoughts for any length of time. Words I wanted to say would be right there and then they’d dissipate like smoke. Such a strange time.’ She shook her head and toyed with the tie of her dressing gown for a beat before continuing.
‘Once I was settled on the seat Leo took my hand and I felt a weight lift because I thought to myself that everything would be alright now. It was then he explained in a matter-of-fact manner he’d made a mistake. His voice was steady, measured as though he’d practised what he was going to say to me. I couldn’t make sense of it. This wasn’t the Leo I knew, and I thought it must be me not processing things properly, I’d misunderstood because his words were nonsensical. Him and Aideen? It only sank in when he took his hand away from mine. This was how things would be from now on. It would be my sister’s hand, not mine he’d be holding.’
‘Oh Una!’ Aisling got up and put her cup and saucer down on the buffet. She wanted to hug the older woman, but she held her hand up to silence her. She needed to finish, she needed to share this story. She’d never breathed a word of it to anyone since the day Leo Greene had shattered her heart into pieces so small she’d never managed to put them back together again.
‘It was my personality you see. I didn’t understand what he meant, and he tried to explain saying I was so strong-willed. He’d gotten swept along by the sheer force of what I wanted. It was only when I was convalescing that he’d had time to clear his head and think properly to understand his feelings. It had been Aideen all along. Quiet gentle Aideen. I don’t remember much of what he said after that. They were words that tumbled on top of each other rather like clothes in a washing machine. What needed to be said had been said and the rest was just that, words. It had become clear that Aideen too had been in love with him just as I had from the time she was ten years old. I’d chosen not to see it because then my feelings for Leo would have been impossible. I was hurt yes, but I might have been able to move on from the pain eventually, but not the humiliation. That and the sense of betrayal was the worst of it, Aisling. I was a proud woman, foolishly proud.’
‘I know a little about what that’s like,’ Aisling murmured, her heart going out to this woman huddled inside her dressing gown on the chair next to her. Her story was far more wounding than Aisling’s, she’d been hurt by the two people she was closest to in the whole world. Heartbreak was heartbreak though and she did know how deep that pain cut. Her words had echoed those of Marcus too, he’d said he’d gotten swept along by what she wanted.
Una nodded. ‘Yes I suppose you do.’
Aisling got up and took the cup and saucer from Una’s whose hand was shaking. She placed it on the buffet next to her own before sitting back down. Una began talking again. ‘I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head of how I’d prattled on about the wedding to them both. How I’d told them it was all I thought about while I was in the hospital and all the while they’d nodded and smiled, told me how good it was I well again. How great it was I was home. All that time they’d known my talk of getting married was farcical. How could Aideen, whom I’d confided all my hopes and dreams in do that to me? It ate away at me for the longest time.’
‘What did you do, you know after Leo told you how he felt?’
‘It was a little like being sick again, there are chunks of time I can’t recall but I do remember shouting at Aideen and grabbing at her hair, where that strength came from I don’t know. Mam pulled me off her. It was Aideen who bore the brunt of my anger. I couldn’t carry on living under the same roof as her and so I packed my bags. Mam and Da begged me to stay. Time would heal Mam said, but I wouldn’t listen. I only made one stop after I left the house that day and that was to Mr Hart. I thanked him for his kindness in holding my job open while I was ill and for allowing me the extra time to recuperate at home, but I wouldn’t be coming back.’ Una’s laugh held no mirth. ‘Oh the look on his studious face when I told him I was leaving due to the fact my sister; my twin sister no less had stolen my fiancé. Thus rendering my life in Dublin intolerable.’
Such was the picture Una was painting Aisling could almost see the small middle-aged man with thinning hair sitting behind his desk. The scandalised expression he’d have worn at what his young secretary was telling him.
‘I took all the money Leo and I’d saved for our wedding out of the bank and closed the account. There was no guilt in the act, I felt I was owed it after what he’d done. I said goodbye to Mr Hart and made my way to the train station. I boarded the first train out of Dublin. I didn’t care where I wound up so long as it was miles away from the city.’
‘And you wound up in Waterford.’
‘Yes, I made a new life for myself there.’
‘But what about your mam and dad?’
‘I think I regret the pain I caused them the most. My poor dad somewhat ironically was killed in an accident not long after I left in his beloved Anglia. But something had happened to me in the aftermath of Leo and Aideen. It was like my heart had been hardened. I couldn’t feel like I felt before. It was like nothing would ever cut quite so deep again. I wrote to mammy and told her where I was. She came to visit me but things between us were always strained because of my refusal to hear any news about my sister. I would not and could not forgive her or Leo.’
‘And you never saw either of them again?’
‘I saw them twice, both times at funerals, first Dad’s and then Mam’s. I kept my distance from them and their sons, they had three boys all close in age both times. Aideen tried to make amends, she wrote and asked to be forgiven but I couldn’t get past what had happened. Leo tried to put things right, he approached me after Mam’s service, but I gave him a short shrift. He got rather angry and called me a selfish woman.’
It was
unfair of Leo, Aisling mused because she could see how hard it would be to mend bridges that had been blown to smithereens. But it also seemed, listening to her tale, that despite the wrongs done to her it was Una who’d lost out in the end. Her life had never been whole since she left Dublin because of her refusal to bend in her emotions. She’d lost not just her fiancé, she’d lost her family too. It was just too sad. She swiped another rogue tear away with the back of her hand.
Una glanced at her sharply. ‘Don’t waste your tears on me, Aisling. What’s done is done. It was my foolish fault not to at least try to find some forgiveness in my heart. If I had I might have been able to open myself up to the possibility of someone else, but I was too stubborn for that and I’d lost the ability to trust in others.’
‘You never met anyone else?’
‘Oh I had a few suitors over the years, but I wouldn’t let them close enough to hurt me. One by one they got tired at being held at arm’s-length and moved on.’ Una reached over then and took hold of Aisling’s hand giving it a brief squeeze. ‘Don’t let pride stand in the way of happiness my dear. If you’re sure of your feelings and you still love this man, then find a way to put that wedding business behind you and give him another chance.’
Aisling shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t know how she felt, Marcus’s sudden appearance had her in a spin. She did know she was scared of making the wrong choice and regretting it in years to come. She didn’t want to be like Una living a life in bitterness. She deflected the subject from herself, curious as to why Una had come back to Dublin now, after all those years. What had changed? ‘Why are you here now?’
She didn’t answer the question right away, she still seemed lost in the past. ‘Do you know I used to walk past O’Mara’s on my way to work for Mr Hart.’ It wasn’t a question rather a statement and a small smile played at the corners of her mouth. ‘I dreamed of what it would be like behind the grand brick facade and I used to imagine the stories that had played out inside these walls. It’s funny to think my story’s part of the fretwork now too isn’t it?’
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