Walled Garden

by Catherine Dunne

  ‘Stop fussing, Alice, and stand still!’ her mother had said sharply. ‘This is the last time you’ll have to try it on – all you’ve got to do now is the hem. I’ll press it for you while you have your bath.’

  And of course, it had been ready in time – just. Alice reflected sadly how the rituals of dressmaking had never made her draw any closer to Beth: with her own mother, it had been a common interest, a real expression of their shared femininity. But it seemed only to have made Beth more angry, more resolute than ever to break free of the ties that bound them. Maybe it was just the difference in generations, but it had sorely disappointed Alice nevertheless. She had had such high hopes for herself and her only daughter.

  She remembered her own mother’s pride as she’d smoothed the full skirt of Alice’s new dress, tugging at the hem a little, settling the shoulder pads, tucking in the facing. They’d stood in front of the full-length mirror in the main bedroom, admiring their handiwork, adjusting Alice’s dark, wavy hair, waiting for the front doorbell to ring.

  ‘You look perfect,’ her mother had whispered, squeezing her daughter’s shoulders as she went past on her way downstairs to let Jack in.

  And now he was here and they were alone together, standing awkwardly in the wide hallway.

  ‘This way,’ she said as she opened the door to the smaller of the downstairs sitting rooms. But he had already taken her hand, lacing his warm fingers through hers. He closed the door behind them quickly and immediately took Alice in his arms. He buried his face in her hair, kissed her mouth, the bottom of her ear, the side of her neck.

  She was startled. He had never been so bold before, never so demonstrative, not even when he’d given her the gold watch last Christmas. There was a new air of excitement about him, a new sureness of her and of himself. She held him closely, clasping her hands together at the back of his neck. Even with her high heels, she had to reach up to him.

  Finally, he stepped back from her, still holding on to both of her hands.

  ‘I’ve brought something for you,’ he said, his face almost immediately recovering its familiar, shy expression. Then she knew for sure. She felt a thrill of excitement; she had wanted this, expected this for so long. She and her mother had spoken of nothing else all afternoon. Was this really it, at last? Her mam had said it would be, and Alice had felt almost too delighted, too nervous for words. Apprehension and anticipation had combined to produce a delicious ache inside her. She wondered would the evening ever come.

  ‘Are you sure he’s the one you want?’ her mother had asked her earlier, as she pressed the seams of Alice’s new dress, her daughter standing by with the pinking shears.

  Alice had looked at her in surprise.

  ‘Of course. He’s lovely! You and Dad have said all along what a good man he is.’

  She was puzzled by the way her mother kept focusing on the pointed nose of the iron, as she eased it in and out of the channels of soft peach-coloured fabric.

  ‘He is. He’s a very good man, but he doesn’t care too much about the future. You’ll never be rich, Alice.’ She paused, still concentrating hard on her ironing. ‘I like him very much, but you won’t have it as easy as Peggy.’

  Alice shrugged. She really didn’t care. She’d never wanted to be like Peggy, anyway. And money didn’t bother her.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. As long as we have enough.’

  Her mother had nodded and expertly turned the dress right way out as she pulled it off the ironing board.

  She’d smiled at her daughter then, patting her cheek gently.

  ‘Well, he won’t be able to resist you in this.’

  Jack guided her over to the small sofa now, and sat her down. Grinning broadly, bashful as a small boy, he knelt on the fireside rug in front of her. The flames licked up and down, shadowing his face, making his eyes shine. Never taking his bright gaze from her face, he put one hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, midnight-blue velvet box. He showed it to her, nestled in the palm of his hand. Immediately, Alice could feel her cheeks begin to burn.

  ‘Open it,’ he said softly.

  Carefully, she lifted the hinged lid. Inside was a delicate, thoroughly modern three-stone engagement ring. Even though she had been preparing herself for this, Alice gasped out loud. It was even lovelier than she had wanted it to be.

  Her eyes filled and she threw her arms around him, feeling the heat of the fire on his skin. He drew back then and took the ring carefully between his thumb and forefinger. Solemnly, he reached for her left hand, the ring poised just over the third finger.

  ‘Will you marry me, Alice?’

  His blue eyes were vivid, dancing.

  ‘Yes, yes I will!’

  She was almost sobbing now, overcome with love and delight and the astonishing promise of being a married woman soon, with her own husband, her own home, children. It was almost too much to take in.

  They admired the ring together.

  ‘If it’s not what you want, we can change it.’

  ‘No, no, it is what I want, it’s just beautiful! I don’t want to change anything!’

  That night, Jack Keating had been perfect in her eyes. Tender, a bit shy, full of extraordinary plans and ambitions, all of which included her.

  Alice shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable. Her neck and shoulders had ached today, during and after the rain. The onset of autumn dampness always spelled trouble. She tried to ease herself back into her pillows.

  Dear Jack. He’d been so proud that night, so delighted she’d said yes, although he couldn’t have had any serious doubts about that. Alice had suspected quite early on that both sets of parents had been scheming away quietly in the background for some time. That had puzzled her, at first. The Keatings had moved from farming to the city years before; she was surprised that the friendship between the two families had run so long and so deep. Sometimes, she had thought that the older Peggy might have been the preferred sister initially – she was gentle and docile, much more biddable than she, Alice, had ever been. But when Peggy married very young in ’42, or was it ’43? – anyway, Jack’s occasional visits to Abbotsford had not stopped, but continued as normal, as though nothing unexpected had happened. Evidently, neither he nor Peggy had broken the other’s heart. When Alice left to do her commercial course in Miss Rutherford’s, it was with strict instructions to get in touch, and stay in touch, with the Keatings. She had known, even then, what her parents were up to, but had acquiesced willingly. This was what young girls did, wasn’t it? Marriage was a highly desirable career, much more desirable than the typing pool in Cremin’s Insurance Company. Your own home, your own chores, your own boss. It had to be better than rattling out endless top copies full of incomprehensible small print, with four smudgy carbons underneath: all of them just waiting for you to make a spelling mistake. And besides, Alice had been a little jealous of the status and freedom that Peggy now seemed to be enjoying. All the young people appeared determined to enjoy themselves, to kick over the traces now that the spectre of the War had finally disappeared.

  She had dragged Jack down the passageway to the kitchen that night, bursting the door open with her enthusiasm.

  ‘Mam, Dad, Jack and I would like to tell you something.’

  Her mother’s quick frown told Alice that she was doing something wrong. Confused, Alice stopped just inside the door, letting the play on the radio fill the sudden silence. Her father turned down the volume, and looked at both of them questioningly, his eyes finally resting on Jack. The fire crackled in the background.

  ‘Yes? What is it, young man?’

  Alice wanted to bite her tongue. Of course, this was Jack’s role: he should be the one to announce the good news, or rather, to ask permission for there to be any good news.

  ‘I . . . Mr McKinney, sir, I’ve asked Alice to be my wife, and she’s said yes. I . . . we . . . wanted to tell you, and to make sure that it’s all right with you. Sir.’

  Alice wanted to giggle. It
was a bit late to be asking for permission. A well-directed glance from her mother silenced her.

  Her father’s face broke into a broad smile.

  ‘That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time – do you mean to tell me she’s finally off my hands?’

  Alice remembered shouting ‘Dad!’ at that point, and then everyone was laughing at once, hugging, kissing. The engagement ring was examined and pronounced perfect.

  A couple of innocents, Alice reflected now, but without rancour. The glow of love had seemed to spread out way beyond them that night, into their future, and Alice had been happy to think of herself as a very lucky girl. That had been one of the best times, and she could still relive the thrill of moving in, as husband and wife, to Jack’s old home in Dublin, in the summer of ’48. She’d been determined to make it up to him for having lost both his parents within six months of each other. With no brothers or sisters of his own, Alice knew that it was now up to her to be all of Jack’s family. She wanted to be everything to him.

  And the house. She’d loved this house from the first day she’d stepped inside the gleaming hallway, and now it was theirs. She’d wanted to change nothing, out of respect for Jack’s recent losses.

  ‘Everything should stay,’ she’d told him, ‘we don’t need to throw anything out. Let’s just paint it, as it is, together.’

  She’d been so happy during those first months, opening her wedding presents, building her nest, playing house, that she had hardly noticed. For Alice, it had seemed normal never to go short. She’d been puzzled, rather than worried, to discover one evening that ‘The Bank’ was empty a lot sooner than it should have been. She knew that Jack would have a good explanation.

  ‘I’ve decided to go out on my own,’ he told her over dinner. ‘There’s lots of work out there: I can earn far more by myself than working for Jimmy Power.’

  She had felt a slight stab of misgiving, even then. But, as her mother would have advised her, she kept her powder dry. Jack had looked unusually determined, and she knew him well enough by now to realize that ‘I’ve decided to’ really meant ‘I’ve already done it’. She wanted to believe in him, she really did, but she was secretly worried that things could go horribly wrong. Everything was beginning to pick up again after the War, even she knew that, but there had been many weeks when Jack brought home only a flat wage. She liked the security of Thursday’s brown envelope, no matter what it contained, and she was proud of how well she managed. On the good weeks, she could even tuck something away for a rainy day. It was amazing, too, how much it cost to keep up old, draughty houses. Even though she loved her home dearly, she had recently had some sneaking, guilty thoughts about how much easier one of the new houses would have been: there were modern bungalows and neat three-bedroom terraced houses springing up in nice estates all over Dublin, ever since the end of the War. Peggy and Joe had just moved into one, and Alice had envied her sister the bright, shiny newness of her endlessly pretty home. She could never have told Jack that, of course; he would have been hurt, and she’d have felt like a traitor.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she’d asked instead. ‘Don’t you need someone like Jimmy Power to find you the work, first?’

  He’d shaken his head.

  ‘No. People know my work, they know it’s good. Trust me, Alice, I know what I’m doing.’

  And in a way, he’d been right. He’d never been busier. He left the house each morning at half past six, not returning until after seven o’clock most evenings. He grew short-tempered and turned greyer and greyer in the face until Alice became frightened. The work kept growing, and with it, the amount of money that Jack was owed. It took Alice time to learn that although Jack could scrape, sand, paint, wallpaper and finish the tricky bits to perfection, he was unable to demand, or even ask for, what was his. He felt it was indelicate – he preferred to trust to his clients’ honour. Whenever she tried to speak to him about collecting some of what was due, he became short with her. He knew what he was doing, she should leave all of that to him. There was no need to worry herself into a state over money. But worry she did. And still no one paid him. She began to grow desperate. With all of this going on, how was she going to find a way to tell him they were going to have a baby?

  She finally broke, the day the half-ton of coal was delivered. Standing by her kitchen window, she watched as two grime-encrusted men with peaked caps and filthy dungarees hoisted bag after bag of coal onto their shoulders, and made dusty progress through her side entrance to the coal-shed. Finally, one of them tapped on her back door.

  ‘That’s four pounds, missus,’ he said, his face completely black except for the startling white gleam of his eyes. The glowing end of a cigarette was held delicately to his lips by dirty thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Just a minute,’ she said, turning confidently towards her willow-patterned teapot on the dresser. She put her fingers inside, expecting to grasp the four single pound notes, rolled into a tube, that she had put there last night, in readiness. There was nothing. Disbelieving, she turned the teapot upside down, and shook it. Nothing. She checked the spout. Frantic now, she ran her hand along the dresser shelves, took the lids off all the jars and dishes arrayed there. There was nothing: the money was gone.

  Stupidly, she checked again. Had she been dreaming? Had the money never been there in the first place? She looked around her wildly. Had they been burgled, then? She checked her handbag, resting as usual on the hall-stand. A ten shilling note, half a crown and a threepenny bit: just what had been there yesterday. So no burglar, then.

  There must be some explanation.

  She went back into the kitchen, ready to confront the coal man. She pulled open the door again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘My husband seems to have forgotten to leave me the money. It’s not in the usual place. Can you come back for it tomorrow?’

  The coal man regarded her steadily. He squeezed the lighted top off his cigarette, and placed the butt carefully behind his ear. Then, he turned to one side and spat, almost apologetically, on to the grass. Alice felt mortified. It was an insolent gesture, calculated to offend. He might just as well have dropped his trousers in front of her.

  ‘Well, now, missus, I’m afraid we can’t do that.’

  He scratched his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘Next delivery round here isn’t until the end of the week.’

  He stood, gazing at her.

  ‘I’ll bring the money into your office tomorrow – tomorrow morning, for sure,’ Alice said.

  She could hear her own voice rising. And underneath all the humiliation was a white-hot anger. Jack must have taken the four pounds – without even telling her.

  The coal man shook his head.

  ‘Sorry, missus. No can do.’

  And he put two fingers to his lips and blew a long, piercing whistle. The younger man reappeared immediately, although nothing at all had been said, with folded, empty sacks under his arm.

  Alice looked at them in horror, her eyes darting from one to the other.

  ‘You can’t!’ she gasped. ‘You can’t take it back!’

  ‘Them’s our orders, missus. Sorry.’

  He turned away, and both men moved towards the coal shed. Alice slammed the kitchen door shut and locked it, hot, angry tears coursing down her face. How could he? How could he do that to her? And now everyone would see – Mrs McGrath, who missed nothing, perched by her front window for most of the day, Mrs Collins at the corner – the whole street would know, soon. Unable to bear watching, or even listening to the scrape of shovel against concrete, Alice ran upstairs and threw herself on her bed, weeping uncontrollably.

  When Jack came in, he found her lying down, listless, the eiderdown pulled up to her chin. Her face was turned to the wall.

  ‘Hello, love,’ he said.

  There was no reply. He spoke again, into the silence.

  ‘What’s wrong? Aren’t you feeling all right?’

  She couldn’t answer.

>   ‘Alice?’ his voice was growing alarmed.

  ‘Did you take the four pounds from the teapot this morning? The money I’d put away for the coal man?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Yeah. I had to borrow it. I was running short of paint for the new job.’

  ‘Did you get paid for the last one yet?’

  ‘No, not yet. But it’s early days.’

  ‘Or the one before that?’

  He began to fidget. This was a new Alice, one he had never seen before. She knew that she was making him uncomfortable. She continued, still keeping her face turned away from him.

  ‘Or even the two big houses, the neighbours on Griffith Avenue, that you finished over two months ago?’

  He was silenced.

  Then she turned to look at him, her eyes swollen, face streaked with tears. He started when he saw her.

  ‘Alice . . . ?’

  ‘Don’t you “Alice” me! Do you know what happened to me this afternoon?’

  She could still feel the molten anger that had filled her that day, right to her fingertips. She had screamed at him, hurling her hurt pride at him, wanting to wound. And then, for the final blow, the coup de grâce, she told him about the baby.

  They’d made up, of course; he’d been chastened and remorseful, said he’d forgotten all about the coal delivery. He’d promised to go after the money owing to him, to have things under control before the baby came. Alice couldn’t quite remember the sequence of events after that – whether he’d gone to Jimmy Power and asked for his old job back before, or just after, James’s birth. It had been within a few months of that day, anyway, and she had taken careful ownership of the weekly brown envelope ever since. She’d never told her mother about the coal man, but had often wondered at the irony of her parents’ choice for her. They had wanted a man who was steady and reliable, a man who was not a drinker: someone who would be good to her and look after her. Well, he wasn’t a drinker, and he did love her, but it was Alice who’d done most of the looking after. She’d also wondered that her mother hadn’t warned her more about money: that day at the ironing board hardly counted, it had hardly been a warning at all, just a gentle little piece of advice on the day of her engagement, not to try and be like Peggy. It had taken Alice years to realize that, just like her own daughter, no matter what warnings Granny Mac might have given, she, Alice, would have listened to none of them.