The Girl From Paradise Alley (ARC)

by Sandy Taylor

  ‘They’ll be gone soon,’ she whispered. ‘They’ve had one pot of tea between them and they’ve been here for a good hour. They haven’t even bought a cake. This isn’t a bloody hotel!’

  ‘Perhaps they’re cold,’ I said.

  ‘Well, let them go home to their own fireside and stop taking advantage of ours.’

  We stood chatting and eventually the couple left, without a by your leave or a thank you.

  ‘Let’s have a cup of tea,’ said Kitty. ‘Minnie has her feet up and I can hear her snoring.’

  I chose a table close to the fire and waited for Kitty to bring the tea. Should I tell her about Finn?

  ‘So,’ she said, sitting down, ‘what’s bothering you now?’

  ‘What do you mean, now?’

  ‘Well, there’s always something wrong.’

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘Well,’ said Kitty, spooning three sugars into her tea, ‘maybe not always, but you have that look about you.’

  ‘What look?’

  ‘The one that says I need to tell you something but don’t know if I should, then I spend the next ten minutes dragging it out of you. So, what’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain.’

  ‘Try. And make sure it’s in your own words and not your Grandad Doyle’s.’

  ‘You’re awful snappy today, Kitty Quinn. I’ve a mind to keep it to myself.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Nora, but I’ve been bored senseless all morning. I don’t know why Minnie keeps the café open in the winter – I’ve barely seen a soul all week and I’m sick of my own company.’

  ‘Then it’s a good job I came by, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is,’ said Kitty, grinning. ‘And I’m mighty glad to see you. Now tell me what’s on your mind.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Well, what?’

  I knew that if I told Kitty about Finn, it would make it real. It wouldn’t be in my head anymore; it would be out of my mouth and I could never take it back. ‘I don’t know if I should.’

  ‘Jesus, Nora, will you just tell me and get it over with.’

  ‘I’ve found myself having feelings for someone.’

  ‘Romantic feelings?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And it’s not Joe?’

  ‘No, it’s not Joe.’

  ‘But you never see anyone, you’re stuck up in that Hall every day. It’s not Eddie, is it?’

  ‘Don’t be an eejit, Kitty. Eddie’s my brother, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Well, I can’t think of anyone up there that you could have feelings about.’ I stirred my tea, even though it didn’t need stirring, and stared at Kitty. ‘Oh my God,’ she said suddenly. ‘It’s Finn Casey, isn’t it?’

  I could feel my face going red.

  ‘It is,’ she said. ‘It’s the Adonis himself.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t feel the same way about him as I do for Joe, but maybe what I feel for Joe isn’t love at all, maybe I was too young to know what love really is.’

  ‘Jesus, Nora, it wasn’t that long ago.’

  ‘But it feels like it, Kitty. It feels as if I’ve grown up suddenly. Sometimes I feel that there is some meaning in the way Finn looks at me. But I don’t know, my feelings for Finn are…’

  ‘Are what?’

  ‘Different.’

  ‘Finn Casey is a doctor, Nora. He’ll be after marrying someone of his own station.’

  ‘You make him sound like a train.’

  Kitty shook her head. ‘You’re on to a loser there, girl. There’s no way you’ll get a feller like that asking you to walk out with him.’

  ‘If I remember rightly, Kitty Quinn, there was a time when you wouldn’t have said no to Finn Casey if he asked you to walk out with him.’

  ‘You’re right, Nora, but I was just a child then and didn’t know my station.’

  ‘For the love of God, will you stop talking about stations. And you weren’t a child at all, you were almost fourteen.

  ‘Okay, truce. So, what are you going to do about it? And what about poor Joe?’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do about it, is there? I just needed to tell someone and you’re the only one I can tell.’

  ‘I’m terrible sorry, Nora,’ said Kitty. ‘You came in here and opened up your heart to me and all I’ve done is eat the face off you.’

  ‘That’s alright, Kitty. I still feel better having told you.’

  ‘Did you have the same feelings when you met Joe?’

  I thought about it. ‘It was different. Joe made it easy for me to fall in love with him. The feelings I have when I’m around Finn aren’t easy at all, they’re unsettling. I can’t ever remember trying to impress Joe with what clothes I was wearing – none of that mattered, to me, or to him. I knew that he loved me completely just for who I was. I had no need to impress him.’

  ‘Do you think that you might just have taken a fancy to Finn, like I did when we were younger? I can remember telling you that you might, when he was being all doctorly, but you were having none of it.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s just a silly fancy.’

  ‘So, it’s helped, talking to me?’ said Kitty, looking pleased with herself.

  ‘Yes, I shall put the said doctor right out of my head.’

  ‘Thank the Lord for that,’ said Kitty. ‘How about a slab of cake?’

  ‘I can’t think of anything I’d like better,’ I said.

  Forty-Eight

  I think as time went on, we all knew that Eddie was never going to get better. We didn’t say it out loud, but I think that in our hearts we knew that we would soon lose him and he was never left alone. Caroline and I gave each other space, for we both had things to tell him that were personal to us. We didn’t know whether he could hear us, but Finn said that hearing was the last thing to go and so we talked, we read to him, we held his hand. If he had to go to that other place, then he would go knowing that he was loved. He took his last breath just before Christmas: our darling boy had gone.

  We were all heartbroken and shocked and couldn’t take it in. Poor Caroline was grief-stricken. The boy she loved like a son had gone and she was now alone. Finn and I did all we could to help but her grief ran so deep that there was no consoling her. She had loved him all her life; she must have held him in her arms when he was but a baby; she must have sat beside his sick bed when he was a little boy. She would have given him comfort, in a house where there was little comfort to be had.

  We buried him in the secret garden because we knew that was where he would want to be. As the snow fell around us, we watched him being lowered into the ground. The Vicar’s words echoed around the old stone walls as we silently said our goodbyes to a kind, wonderful boy, who had meant so much to us. The Vicar helped Caroline back to the house but Finn and I stayed by the graveside. I wasn’t ready to leave my brother yet. I hadn’t cried since his death, because Caroline’s grief had been so raw that it somehow left no room for anyone else’s. I knelt down on the cold ground and remembered the boy who had jumped out at me and Kitty, the first time we had slipped through the broken fence and into the grounds of Bretton Hall. I remembered his grin, I remembered trusting him, even though Kitty didn’t, and I remembered the first time he had shown us the garden – the look of pride on his face as he opened the gate. He wanted us to love it as much as he loved it. And I had.

  ‘Why did he have to go, Finn?’ I asked sadly.

  ‘We had him longer than we thought we would. He saw the garden again and he had you. He wouldn’t have suffered, Nora.’

  ‘But he’s gone and I will never see him again. I will never, never see him again.’

  ‘But he will be in your heart, he will always be in your heart.’

  I turned on him angrily. ‘I don’t want him in my heart!’ I shouted. ‘I want him alive; I want to see him smile and laugh, I want him here with me, planting and digging, I want him to push me on the
swing, I want to sit on the bench beside him. I want him to see the garden change with the seasons. He didn’t get the chance to see the flowers we planted. I don’t want him buried in the ground. How can I sleep at night, thinking of him here, all alone? Tell me, how can I do that?’

  Finn knelt down beside me. ‘That isn’t Eddie, Nora,’ he said gently. ‘Eddie is in a far better place.’

  ‘That’s just words, Finn, it’s just stupid words that are supposed to make me feel better. Well, they don’t, okay? They don’t make me feel better.’

  Finn put his arm around my shoulder but I pushed it away.

  ‘We hadn’t finished the book we were reading,’ I whispered. ‘He will never know the ending.’

  That’s when the tears came, great gulping sobs that had me fighting for breath, and then I was in Finn’s arms, my tears soaking his coat. He held me gently and let me cry, he smoothed my hair back from my face, he held me close to him until there were no tears left.

  We stayed like that as the snow fell around us and covered the garden in a blanket of white dust. ‘You can still read to him, Nora. You can finish the book. He will hear you, because he will always be beside you, his spirit will always be here. You will see him in every tree and flower, you will smell him as the roses begin to bloom. He will be here every spring and every autumn, every summer and every winter. He will always be here in the garden that you both loved.’

  Finn held me away from him and wiped the tears from my cheeks, then he held my face in his hands. ‘Eddie loved you, Nora, and love doesn’t just disappear.’

  I leaned into him and we stayed like that until our faces and hands became numb with the cold, then we walked out of the garden and back up the hill to the Hall.

  There was no place for me here anymore. I wasn’t needed now that Eddie had gone but I couldn’t leave Caroline alone in that big, empty house.

  I remember when Kitty and I used to sit on the graveyard wall watching the funerals. We had never thought about the grief of the mourners as they walked behind the coffin. We hadn’t cared enough, as they stood at the graveside and watched a beloved husband, wife, son, or daughter being lowered into the ground.

  We had been more concerned about what shoes they had on their feet or whether or not they were wearing their Sunday best hats. We gave them points out of ten for wailing, or for being dignified, when their loss may have been so great that they were beyond tears. When their grief may have been so great that they hadn’t cared what they had on their feet or on their heads. If I could go back in time, I would have touched an arm, I would have said that I was sorry for their loss. But we were just children who hadn’t known any better.

  * * *

  I spent Christmas morning with my family at the Grey House and then went back to the Hall and ate Christmas dinner with Caroline. We sat opposite each other, at either end of the long table that ran the length of the dining room. The staff had draped the marble fireplace with holly and winter foliage but that was the only decoration in the house. Mammy used to tell me about the grand parties that were held in the ballroom and the beautiful Christmas tree that stood in the hallway, reaching up to the ceiling, hung with tinsel and baubles and presents. There was no tree this year and there was no grand party, only a deep sadness for the boy we had both loved and would never see again.

  As I was leaving to go back to the Hall that morning, Mammy had said, ‘You can’t stay on there for ever, my love, however sorry you feel for Caroline. She must find her own way, and so must you.’

  ‘But she is broken, Mammy.’

  ‘And she will mend – we have all lost people we love but we make a choice to live or to die and if our choice is to live, then we must live the very best life we can, because that is what they would want for us. That is what Eddie would want for you and for his aunt. That is all you can do for him now, Nora – live your life and make him proud, for he will be with you every step of the way and he will carry you when the hill seems too hard to climb.’

  I said goodbye to Eddie in the garden. ‘I’m going back to Dublin, Eddie,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to leave you but I have to believe Finn and Mammy, who say that you will be with me. I need so much to believe that. Caroline says she feels you with her, she feels your presence beside her every day and it’s giving her comfort. I haven’t felt you with me, Eddie, I have only felt your loss. Is Caroline’s need for you greater than mine? Or is it all just nonsense, is it just her imagination, because she wants it so much? I need to feel you, Eddie, I need to feel you.’

  Forty-Nine

  Finn drove me to Cork, where I would catch the train to Dublin. We barely spoke on the way there. I suppose there was nothing left to say except goodbye and I would leave that until the very last moment, because saying goodbye to Finn felt almost as bad as saying goodbye to Eddie. We had shared something special, the three of us, something that only we would remember.

  Finn carried my case as we walked into the station. We were early, so we sat on a long bench under the clock.

  ‘I have something for you, Nora, but before I give it to you, I want you to promise me something.’

  ‘I promise,’ I said, without hesitation.

  Finn put his hand in his coat pocket and took out a letter. ‘I don’t want you to open it, Nora.’

  ‘What, never?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Finn looked directly into my eyes, as if he was almost willing me to read his mind, but I couldn’t. Why would he give me a letter that I may never read?

  ‘I want you to be happy, Nora,’ he said. ‘Always remember that.’

  ‘I will, but I still don’t understand.’

  ‘And I’m doing a really bad job of explaining it, aren’t I?’

  ‘I’m afraid you are, Finn.’

  ‘I want you to open this letter when your heart tells you to. Not out of curiosity, but because it’s the right time and I have a feeling you will know when that time comes. If it never comes, you might come across it one day when you’re seventy years old and not even remember who had given it to you.’

  ‘I will never forget,’ I said. ‘Even when I’m seventy.’

  ‘You might, and if that day comes, just throw it away.’

  I stared at Finn’s beautiful face; it seemed important that I remembered everything about it. ‘I promise,’ I said. ‘And I always keep my promises.’

  We sat together until the train that would take me back to Dublin chugged into the station, leaving a billow of white smoke in its trail.

  I picked up my case. ‘Goodbye again, Finn Casey,’ I said.

  Finn leaned over and kissed my cheek. I could feel his warm breath against my hair. I wanted him to hold me just one more time, but he stepped away. ‘I want you to remember one more thing, Nora. I want you to trust your heart and not some words written on a page. Sometimes words can get in the way.’

  I didn’t know what he meant, but I said, ‘I’ll remember that, Finn.’

  ‘Goodbye, Nora Doyle,’ he said.

  ‘Goodbye, Finn Casey.’

  Just before I stepped into the carriage, I turned around, but Finn had gone. I was still holding his letter in my hand as the train rolled north. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t open it, or how I would know when the time came that I could. I trusted Finn and I knew it was important that I did what he asked. I had taken my copy of The Secret Garden with me, so I took the book out of my case and put the letter between the pages, next to the last rose of summer.

  I had mixed feelings as the train sped towards Dublin. I had written to Miss Berry to tell her that I was coming back – I hadn’t expected her to keep my job open for me but she said that there would always be a position for me at Finnigan’s. Was I doing the right thing? Could I fit back into that other life that seemed so long ago? I wasn’t the same person that had said goodbye to Joe and my friends. Eddie’s death had changed me – I could hardly remember the girl who had left Paradise Alley and set
out on an adventure, full of hope and excitement. That girl had gone and it was a different girl who was on her way back to Dublin.

  I’d hardly slept the night before and when I had, my dreams had been vivid and unsettling. I was sitting on the flat rocks with Kitty and then Kitty turned into Finn and we were eating buns that were covered in bright-red icing that looked like blood. I was running through the rooms of Bretton Hall, asking everyone where Eddie’s bedroom was, but no one answered me: it was as if I was invisible.

  I had woken up trembling, and scared to go back to sleep, so I got out of bed and stood by the window. The floorboards were cold beneath my bare feet. It was dark outside, the only thing I could see was my own reflection staring back at me. I stayed there until the sun came up over the hill, then I’d washed and dressed, picked up my case and went downstairs.

  I’d made myself a cup of tea and sat down at the table. Buddy-two was asleep by the stove – he’d opened one eye and gave a half-hearted attempt at wagging his tail. Grandad Doyle must have heard me moving about and had come downstairs.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ he’d asked, sitting beside me.

  ‘Am I doing the right thing, Grandad?’

  ‘Only you know that, my love,’ he’d said.

  ‘But I don’t, that’s the trouble. Part of me thinks I’m running away, that if I’m somewhere else, I can forget.’

  ‘You can’t run away from grief, Nora, it’s something you carry with you. Grief is a natural thing, it has a natural progression, it’s something you learn to live with and in time the pain eases. The mind is a great thing, Nora – it has its own way of figuring things out. Go back to Dublin and if it doesn’t work out, then you come home, for Paradise Alley will always be your home.’

  ‘Thank you, Grandad.’

  ‘Immerse yourself in those books that you love, for just like those books, everyone has their own story to tell and this is yours. Embrace your grief, Nora, for it is now a part of who you are and will give you a wisdom that you never had before. To truly understand grief, you have to have known it, you have to have felt it. Maybe one day you will be able to reach out to someone who is suffering, because you have walked in their shoes.’