The Angels of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘I will, Mammy. I promise I will come home every holidays. Ye won’t be embarrassed by me. Sure, I will be the most dutiful daughter. I want ye to be proud of me.’ Maybe it was because she was an only child, but Dana knew she carried all her mammy’s hopes and dreams for the adventures she had never had herself.

  *

  On her last night in Ireland, her parents threw a goodbye party in the village hall and every resident, other than the very elderly and the infirm, attended. When a free drink was on offer the village united, and everyone who had given out about Dana’s being above herself, or accused her in whispered conversations of being no better than she ought to be, arrived with a generous gift in hand. If there was a party to be had, all was forgiven. Dana laughed at the prospect of trying to lift a case so full of parting gifts. She knew her mammy would make her pack even the small net of potatoes Mrs Gallagher had brought, tied with a ribbon at the top.

  ‘’Tis the first thing they all miss when they leave home,’ Mrs Gallagher whistled through her toothless gums, ‘so best to be taking some with her.’

  ‘Mammy, I cannot carry potatoes all the way to Liverpool. Surely to God they have them over there,’ Dana hissed when Mrs Gallagher left their side, which she did the second someone asked her was she wanting a Guinness.

  ‘I’m not saying they don’t.’ Mrs Brogan was offended. ‘No one in their right mind ever had a bad word to say about a potato, Dana. But they won’t have come from Belmullet and that’s what’s important. And, sure, ye cannot leave a gift behind. That would be most rude.’

  ‘But Mammy, ’tis a sack of potatoes!’ Dana was becoming exasperated.

  ‘Aye, but it’s only a small one, Dana, and would ye look at that lovely ribbon she’s tied around the sacking. The time she must have taken threading that.’

  Dana moved to stand near the main doors to greet her friends. Those who worked in Dublin had travelled back on the train to Galway. Her father had taken a trailer on the back of the van to collect them. It took a party back home to tempt them to leave the bright lights and the night life of Dublin town. Everyone knew someone who was working in Liverpool, and numerous pieces of paper and envelopes were shoved into her hand bearing the names and addresses of former Belmullet and Atlantic coast residents who had sailed the well-worn route across the Irish Sea before her. Some were nuns working in schools and convents, some were priests, saving souls on the back streets of Liverpool. She recognized all the surnames and that was all she needed. ‘I’m a Brogan from Mayo,’ was all she would ever need to say by way of introduction.

  ‘There’s a Brogan in Watford, now,’ her da had said. ‘My cousin who was gone when he was just sixteen, he finished up there. You’ll find him easy enough if ye need help. Just ask anyone for Danny Brogan. They’ll all know him.’

  It was the first helpful thing he had said since the day the letter had arrived at the start of the summer.

  Once the fiddlers struck up and the Guinness flowed she danced with the best of them, until, exhausted and hot, she stopped to fetch herself a glass of water and pay a visit to the privy. Some of her friends were having fun dancing with their peers, while others, exhausted from the journey back on top of a week’s work, sat on the chairs to gossip. A neighbour’s baby lay on her mammy’s knee, thumb in mouth, sucking away. Dana caught Mrs Brogan’s eye as she left the hall and made a sign between the dancing and jigging heads, that she was off to find herself a drink. Her mother nodded and smiled in response, tapping her feet to the music. Another neighbour sat next to her, nursing her own babby and waved across as well.

  For a moment, a shiver of fear ran down Dana’s spine. If she hadn’t got into St Angelus, if she had been pressured into marrying green-gob Patrick, in a few years from now that could have been her. Dana could see the pleasure on her mammy’s face as she kissed the neighbour’s baby on the top of his head, and she struggled to understand how a life of nothing but selfless giving and hard work could ever make for happiness. Dana had to do something, make something of herself, before she settled down to that. All her mother needed to experience bliss was for those she loved to be having a grand time. Even her da, standing at the bar with his friends, looked relaxed. She heard the familiar roar of laughter and could see his shoulders shaking up and down as a friend shouted something in his ear.

  Slipping out of the back door, she stood on the step for a moment and closed her eyes to let the cool air lower the temperature of her burning cheeks. It was hot in the hall and perspiration trickled from her neck down between her breasts. She undid the buttons on her cardigan and pulled her blouse out of her skirt, shaking the material to let the cold fresh air waft up and over her body. Feeling better she started along the cinder path to the outhouse, and caught herself in surprise as from nowhere Patrick stepped out into her path.

  ‘So, you’re off then,’ he said, putting a cigarette into his mouth and pulling hard.

  She steeled herself and straightened her back, and for the first time in her life in her own home town she felt uncomfortable and scared.

  ‘I am, Patrick. I’m away in the morning. Isn’t that why you are here, to wish me well and say goodbye?’

  She sounded stronger than she felt. She had noticed a change in Patrick over the past few months. He had not concealed his disappointment well.

  Patrick flopped to the side and, smirking, leant against the wall of the turf shed. ‘Is that so? Do ye think ye will be marrying some grand and fancy doctor and selling the farm, then?’

  Dana ignored him and, taking a breath, lifted her head higher than usual. Hoping she looked a great deal bolder than she felt, she walked purposefully on. Aware of every step she took, she felt her heart beat faster, her mouth become dry and the hairs on her arms bristle and rise. She wasn’t scared of Patrick. He may have been counting on the fact that their fathers had been planning their wedding day and the unification of the two farms for more years than she could remember, but as far as she was concerned that was their plan, not hers. He may have been affronted by her lack of response to his clumsy romantic advances, but nevertheless, they had known each other since birth and played together when they were children. They had walked to school together every day until they had parted ways, he heading to the boys’ side of the school and she to the girls’. He was her old playmate, whose shoelaces she had tied until he was ten because he could never get the hang of it himself.

  As she came alongside him, she could smell the alcohol. He looked agitated. His eyes were red and wild-looking; his lip snarled in a way she had never seen before. This was not the Patrick she knew, and she felt her skin tighten in response to a rush of adrenalin, as goose-pimples covered her body.

  As she quickened her steps and hurried by, he pushed himself away from the wall and stretched up to his full height, fixing her with his gaze, but he said no more. Once more, she had outwitted him. God, I’ll be glad to be gone, she thought, as she rinsed her hands under the tap in the privy and splashed the cold water on to her face. She hung around, hoping someone else would follow her in, so that she could engage in bright chatter and wait to walk back with them into the hall. Or maybe Patrick would finish smoking and join his da and the other lads in the pub they had known since they were kids. Surely he would be gone by now. As she looked outside, she saw that her prayers had been answered. The path was clear, and all that remained of Patrick was his cigarette smouldering on the cinder path. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, she left the outhouse and walked down the cinder path.

  She didn’t see his hand shoot out from the shadows and grab at her arm, or feel him pull her violently towards the turf shed. It was all so quick that before she could scream he had pushed her inside and slammed the door with a bang.

  ‘What are you doing, you fecking eejit?’ she snapped, feeling instantly guilty for being in a dark enclosed space with him. Her nostrils filled with the smell of the dark brown peat, and she felt the cut bricks digging into her back as he pushed his weight against her. She knew
that if she were seen in the shed with Patrick she would be viewed as the guilty one. It would be she who was whispered about, not he. No two people in a dark enclosed place would be believed to be up to any good. They would laud him as a bold lad and condemn her as a harlot.

  Patrick didn’t reply. He had other plans. As he pulled up her blouse with one hand and her skirt with the other, he pressed his wet lips on hers and she fought the instinct to retch. Whatever he had learnt with Monica, it had not been finesse. She managed to get both her arms in front of her and shoved him with all her might, but it was useless. Patrick had spent his entire life working on a farm. Each of his arms was the width of a newborn baby and his muscles bulged hard against her own. She felt trapped. Weightless. Despite pushing him with every ounce of her might, until she was drained of breath and gasping for air, she had made absolutely no difference. He hadn’t moved an inch. She was imprisoned.

  ‘Think you’re too fecking good for me, do you?’

  Patrick pinned her legs to the wall with his knees and pain shot up her thighs from the sheer weight of him. Drops of spittle landed on her face as he spoke. Her stomach heaved with the stench. How could her own father ever have thought this was the man she should spend her life with? Her instincts were to scream, and as she tried with what was left of her breath, a thin reedy wail escaped. This isn’t happening, she thought. He will come to his senses in a second. This isn’t happening. It cannot be. Letting go of one of her wrists, he again tugged at her blouse, frustrated at the full-length underslip which covered her bra. He pulled down at the top hard to expose her breasts.

  ‘I know what to do with you.’ He spoke into the side of her face and she could feel his hot breath against her skin. ‘I’m no eejit. You think I was going to wait for you?’

  He laughed out loud and slammed himself into her again, until she could feel his iron-hard erection pressing an indentation into the soft flesh of her thigh. ‘Ye just need to be shown what you’ll be missing while you’re away, missus. Think yer fuckin’ bold with ye’re fuckin’ gobshite clever words? Ye won’t be so bold when I’ve fucking finished with ye.’

  At that moment, Dana realized, Patrick was too far gone and consumed by his own need for revenge. She was done for. With what breath she had left, she began to sob and begged him to stop.

  ‘Patrick, don’t. Let me go. I will talk about it outside, so I will. I promise I will think about it all again. I won’t go if ye don’t want me to. Please, just stop.’

  He wasn’t listening to a word she said, and she felt consumed with horror as he thrust one hand up her skirt between her thighs and hurt her, his jagged fingernails stabbing into her flesh. Tears of pain flooded her eyes and she wanted to give up fighting, to give in and die, for him to be gone and the pain to be over. She could hardly breathe because of the weight of him, pushing against her with the full length of his legs and thrusting the hard bone of his pelvis into her soft belly. He was taller than she was and twice her size. She started to gasp for air as he forced the last breath out of her. She felt light-headed, and her head began to swim.

  Pinning her to the wall with his forearm across her chest, Patrick fumbled with his free hand at his belt and trousers. Dana heard the leather belt slip as the buckle opened and it slid undone. His trousers fell to his knees and he pulled his langer clear of his oversized shorts before wrenching her skirt up and ripping the front of her knickers away. She knew the consequences of what he was about to do. At that moment she doubted she would leave the turf shed alive, convinced that Patrick would kill her once he had satisfied himself. Even if he didn’t, she was sure she would be pregnant at the very least, and bearing a child to a man like Patrick would be as good as being dead.

  ‘Oh, God, no.’ She began to cry. ‘What are you doing? Get off me.’

  She let out one long, screeching wail, delivered by an overwhelming need to emerge from the ordeal alive. The future she had always dreamed of was at her fingertips, only days away. She no longer cared if anyone saw her. She was already someone. She was a girl from the villages who was leading the way for others. She was breaking free of the pattern of existence that had been the lot of girls like her for generations. Patrick swore again as he slammed his hand over her mouth.

  ‘Fucking shut it. Shut it,’ he hissed as he thrust himself against her. His knees jabbed into her thighs and she felt him, shockingly exposed, hard, wet and naked, jabbing, pushing his way further up her thigh, searching, grabbing at the flesh of her leg until she felt his dirty fingernails cutting into her skin once more.

  He failed to find her. ‘You fucking witch,’ he hissed, forcing her legs apart with his knee until she thought she would split in two with the pain.

  She bit into his hand, hard, her teeth ripping at his flesh. He pulled his hand away and she let out another terrified scream but still it didn’t stop him. She knew he was on the brink of violating the most private and precious part of her life. She had no defence, no way of protecting herself. She was trapped in the vice of his thighs, and as the fight left her she slipped down the wall. Her only thought was that Patrick was about to destroy her life and her dreams.

  Suddenly, Patrick pulled away from her sharply, and for a moment she failed to understand what was happening. The shed filled with light and she became aware that the door was open and that Noel, her own daddy, stood in the centre of the room. In a split second, he had made complete sense of the entire scene.

  Patrick didn’t know what had hit him as Noel Brogan lifted him by the back of his collar and ejected him from the shed. Dana heard the unmistakable snap of a bone as Patrick hit the ground outside. There was a scream, then Patrick’s sobs and her daddy’s swearing. The sound of the band and the dancing was louder and Dana almost wept in relief for small mercies. She knew a hail of blows must be raining down on Patrick. It was the Irish way. Fists and boots first, words later. She rearranged her clothes, desperately wanting to be out of the gloom of the turf shed and into the now fading light outdoors. As she stood in the doorway, clinging to the frame to hold herself upright, she saw Patrick scuffling across the cinder path and scrambling away, dragging his dislocated foot behind him. His nose and mouth were pouring blood and he was crying like a babby.

  Dana’s father retrieved his cap from the ground and busied himself with knocking the cinder dust away with the back of his hand to give her privacy while she straightened the rest of her clothes and wiped her eyes with the handkerchief that had somehow remained inside her skirt pocket. ‘Is this your fault?’ he asked her at last.

  ‘Oh, God, oh God,’ she cried. ‘Did ye not see what he nearly did to me, Daddy?’

  Noel ignored the question. His voice was as cold as steel when he spoke. Dana did not have the pull or the ways of her mammy when it came to her father.

  ‘Did you ask him to come in here with you?’

  Noel was unlike Patrick’s father. He was not a violent man when it came to women, but he could give any man a good kicking if needed. But, he had to know it was for good reason. Men in their village talked with their fists and ended up in the gaol, but not Noel. It was yet another hold his wife had over him. ‘Use your fists and I will leave you.’ He was afraid she would, because he knew she had somewhere to go and someone who was waiting. Someone who had never stopped waiting.

  ‘No, Daddy, I did not. Do you think I’m mad? Do you think I would want to do anything with that disgusting creature?’ She was screaming now and pointing at the hobbling, retreating Patrick as she spoke. ‘He dragged me in. He said he was going to show me what I would be missing while I was in Liverpool. Daddy, he was going to...’

  Dana could not speak out loud the words to describe what Patrick had been going to do. Sex was not spoken about at home. Dana saw the temper flare up in her father; she watched as the redness rose from his neck and spread across his face. He was angrier than she had ever seen him before. He looked as though he were about to explode, and when he spoke it was in a voice shot through with steel.

/>   ‘Why in God’s name was I not given sons?’

  The tone, and the coldness of his words, frightened Dana. She had never seen him like this before. He wiped his mouth and placed his cap back on his head. ‘I will deal with Patrick, but if I find you are lying to me, if you encouraged him or egged him on, there will be trouble. ’Tis here you will be staying tomorrow, not Liverpool.’

  For the first few seconds after he had spoken, Dana was filled with disbelief. She felt the anger surge through her at the deep, hurtful injustice of her father’s comment and she could barely hold back the torrent of words that rose in her like stale vomit. She wanted to scream and rage at him, but she knew that with her father this got you nowhere. With the strongest will she could summon to keep the telltale anger from her voice, she said, ‘Do you know what I have just been through, Da? This is my night, my party and your best friend’s son has just tried to rape me. The boy you wanted me to marry has just pushed me in here and tried to... to...’

  Her words tailed off and her bottom lip trembled as her voice deserted her. She was choked by the tears that threatened to claim her. But she stared at her father defiantly.

  ‘Yes, well, I will be asking Patrick questions too. But as I say, if I find out ye are lying to me...’

  ‘How do you intend to work that one out, Daddy? Will you take his word over mine? Here, look at this!’ She pulled up her skirt to reveal the indentations of Patrick’s dirty fingernails and the blood trickling down her thighs. ‘Do ye think I asked for this?’ Now she was crying hard.

  Her father had moved away, disturbed, having intended his words to remain unchallenged. He glanced back at her, and Dana saw him flinch when he saw her thighs. For a moment, there was silence between them.

  ‘No, I’ll take your word, Dana. Cover yerself up now. I have to believe ye, because your mammy’s heart would be broken if there were to be any scandal about you in the town. You are her golden girl, and I don’t want her to be made unhappy. But let this be a lesson to ye. Ye can’t lead someone on the way ye have Patrick for all these years and not expect there to be consequences when ye let him down. What has happened to ye tonight, ’tis yer own fault. Now, pull yourself together and then come back inside as though nothing has happened. I will make sure Patrick is taken home.’