Mary Kate

by Nadine Dorries

  And then she was gone, replaced by Rosie, leaving his heart pained.

  When Finn called out for his mammy, Sarah always answered. She was forever there, in Tarabeg, had never left, and Michael knew that if she hadn’t been, he might not have stayed either. In the darkest days, when he was only just about functioning, he’d been tempted not to return home. On his buying trips to Dublin he had often stood on the bridge over the Liffey and contemplated his own demise. Though Sarah was dead, he felt her presence in their home still, waiting for him; her smell was in her clothes, and if he closed his eyes, he could feel her. At times he was convinced he heard her breathing next to him in bed. It was this that had saved him, made him turn on his heel and walk back to the van, start the engine and head for home. How could he die in Dublin when Sarah had never really left Tarabeg?

  It had never felt right to him that Finn called Rosie ‘Mammy’, but as Nola had said to him, ‘Finn knows no other. He was only hours old when Sarah died, so of course he should call Rosie “Mammy”, that is who she is to him.’ He couldn’t argue with her. She was right. Nola was always right. He had married Rosie, and she was mammy to Finn, but deep inside, he felt a loyalty to Sarah that made his heart fold. He would not, could not, confess to anyone that he resented Rosie being mammy to Finn, despite the fact that he could never have managed without her. She’d been indispensable, always there, making the impossible possible.

  Michael turned away now from Finn and Rosie and his vanished vision of Sarah and continued talking to Peggy. ‘I’ve left the feed for Pete Shevlin to collect out here on the path, in the sack.’ He pointed to the hessian bag leaning up against the wall.

  ‘Ah, sure, but how will Pete know that one is his?’ Peggy asked, her brow furrowed beneath her thick fringe of dark, wiry hair, her hands thrust deep into her apron pockets. Her eyes were dark and brown and gave the false impression that she was wise and thoughtful. But Peggy was far too interested in the shallower aspects of life, hers and everyone else’s, to pay too much attention to that which was relevant or necessary. Working in Malone’s had been the next best thing to securing a job with Mrs Doyle at the post office, and what Mrs Doyle didn’t pick up at her end of the main street, Peggy gathered at hers, filling in the gaps.

  Peggy’s daily focus was on gathering every bit of information she could about life in America and writing it all down in a book; she’d begun the book five years ago and had reread it many times. At night she worked in Paddy’s bar, where she put together a list of addresses in the most exotic-sounding places in America, written down for her by every passing tourist and fisherman with the promise of a warm welcome when she finally crossed the Atlantic. She saved every halfpenny she earned working for Michael during the day and for Paddy and Josie at night into an oversized jar that she hid under the eaves of the cowshed on her parents’ farm. She counted down the days until she could escape and head for New York and a life of high heels, fox-fur stoles, sharkskin slips and whalebone corsets.

  Michael lifted his cap and wiped away the line of sweat that had formed on his forehead. ‘Pete will know, Peggy, because the sack has his name on it, because there is no other bag of feed out here that I can see, and because I’m telling you now. He will be down with the cart to collect it this afternoon.’ Exasperated, he had almost raised his voice.

  Peggy Kennedy had not been his choice to work in the shop, but the fact was that more people were leaving Tarabeg than were staying. Every year, Tarabeg’s population decreased while Liverpool and America saw theirs grow. It had occurred to him recently that there’d been a whole year of his life when almost nothing of any importance had been his choice. Following Sarah’s death, he’d lost a good twelve months to grief, alcohol and self-pity and during that time others had made decisions for him, decisions he had since come to regret, one of which was the employment of Peggy.

  ‘And make sure you take the right money for the fishing licences. Captain Carter has put them up to two and six now that the salmon are in, and the day’s fishing is to be done by four or the ghillie will charge them double. Do you understand that, Peggy?’

  Peggy planted her hands firmly on her hips. ‘Michael Malone, do you think I am simple or what? Of course I understand that. You are offending me now. Go and bring Mary Kate back home. Sure, look what I bought her.’

  She disappeared inside the shop and seconds later ran back out carrying a brown-paper bag, rather scrumpled. Michael knew this would be because whatever was contained inside would have already been shown to pretty much every resident in the village.

  She pulled out a set of lace handkerchiefs with the initials MKM embroidered in the corner. ‘I got them done specially, in Castlebar,’ she said. ‘See here’ – she pointed to the blue stitching in the middle and a thatched cottage to the side with a red door – ‘that’s the river and that’s the shop.’

  Michael’s heart softened with gratitude and guilt at his impatience. Peggy tested him to the limit, but like so many in Tarabeg, she had a heart of pure gold and it was probably true to say had never harboured a bad thought towards anyone in her life. She was a gossip, but a kind one, if there was such a thing.

  ‘She will love them, Peggy,’ he said as he put his hands into his pockets and sighed. ‘You know she doesn’t want to come here, don’t you? She’ll want to go straight back up to the farm to see Daedio. She spends more time up there than she does in the shop.’

  ‘Oh, sure, that’s just because she’s so close to Nola, and God in heaven, Nola has been at that school more than she’s here in Tarabeg.’

  Michael knew this was true. St Catherine’s opened its doors on Saturdays for afternoon tea for parents between three and five o’clock. So Nola had made Seamus learn to drive Michael’s car and take her out to see her granddaughter every week. Michael himself was always at his busiest on a Saturday, dealing with the fishermen; the daily routine of their family home was anchored to a business that opened at seven and closed when people stopped ringing the bell. Sister Magdalena, mother superior at St Catherine’s, had tried to point out to Nola that she was not Mary Kate’s mother, but she was met with a rehearsed and swift rebuttal. ‘Sister, her mammy is dead. I am the closest she has to a woman with the same blood in her veins so I will be the one coming to see her, every week that God keeps me alive and able.’

  Nola had taken the place of Rosie and it was unspoken that she ranked higher in Mary Kate’s world. Rosie had been kindness itself, but the bond between Sarah and Mary Kate permeated every room in the house and every conversation, from the inane to the extraordinary. There wasn’t anything Rosie could do to eradicate the ghost of Sarah.

  ‘Morning, Peggy. Is Michael giving out to you like you’ve never managed the shop on your own before?’ said Nola as she approached the two of them. ‘Michael, give Peggy a break, she runs the place every single day without you on her back. Go and get your father from Paddy’s. He’ll be asking you to stop every five minutes for a piddle and making us late if he has any more to drink. And look at Finnbar, would you, Peggy, what a good lad he is, in the car after going already and not a complaint out of him.’

  Nola didn’t acknowledge that the cleanliness and readiness of Finn was all down to Rosie and that if he’d been left to his own devices he’d be tearing around the road with the Devlin boys, or down at the bridge watching the water rush and roar, or pestering fishermen further along the river, taunting them with his ability to fish better than they could and daring them to let him have a go.

  Michael heeded Nola’s warning and hurried across to Paddy’s bar, where through the window he could see Seamus sitting at the front counter together with Paddy himself.

  Seamus and Paddy both looked up as Michael crossed the road. ‘Oh, there ye are, we’re off,’ said Seamus, picking up the glass and downing the remaining drop of Powers whiskey in one.

  ‘’Tis a beautiful day for her to be coming home,’ said Paddy.

  ‘Aye, but to which home, Paddy, that’s the question. I
don’t know where Mary Kate gets her stubbornness from, but she is bold, sure she is, and determined. I bet you a glass of the Powers she’ll be wanting to come back to the farm with us to see Daedio. I near have to pay her in the holidays to go back down the hill to Michael and Rosie. ’Tis only the pull of Keeva and Finn and the boys that works in the end.’

  ‘Well, she can’t do that today,’ said Paddy. ‘We have the party ready for her. What time will you be back? Everyone’s looking forward to it, and would you look at the sun, what a great night it will be. Now, Seamus, don’t be telling her. It’s a big surprise, remember.’

  Seamus looked wounded. ‘Well, I’m telling you, I would never let her know about a surprise. Pete is bringing Daedio down at about four, all ready to meet her. Bridget McAndrew is up there with him now. The old bugger, he’s the worst.’

  Paddy wiped down the bar. ‘He’s the best,’ he said with a grin. ‘A creaking gate, he is. I’ve never known a man as well for his age. Bridget says he’s got a lot of life left in him yet.’

  The door opened and Michael strode in. ‘We are all ready, Da,’ he said.

  ‘Quick, here, Michael, take this to fortify you for the journey.’ Paddy poured out a glass of whiskey.

  Glancing over his shoulder to check that neither his mother nor Rosie was watching, Michael drank it in one. ‘That was good,’ he said with a grin and a wink to Paddy. ‘After half an hour with Peggy, I needed that.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you be worrying about Peggy. Tig is back soon and we’ll keep an eye on the shop. Away with you now and bring that little colleen back home to where she belongs.’

  ‘Aye, wherever that may be.’ Seamus stood and took his cap from the stand. As they left the bar, he gave his son a warm and fatherly pat on the back. The bell above the door jangled as it closed.

  ‘Right, Da, let’s go and collect the member of the family who is as stubborn as the donkey.’

  Seamus laughed. ‘Well, she is seventeen now, she’s just finding her feet, but I’m thinking she’ll be a woman soon enough – and doesn’t she have a woman’s ways. If she’s anything like her Granny Nola, you won’t be able to keep up with her.’

  As the car turned out of Tarabeg and onto the Galway road, Rosie dipped her head and glanced up at the bright blue July sky. No one had spoken a word since they’d loaded up and pulled away. She was in the back seat with Finn at her side and Nola on the other end. Seamus was in the front next to Michael. He appeared to be studying the passing hedgerows intently.

  Rosie stole a glance at her husband in the rear-view mirror. His chin was set firm and he was concentrating on the road ahead. She sighed as her hand slipped to her side, found that of her stepson, Finn, and felt the warm and welcome embrace of his sticky fingers. She squeezed them lightly and turned to smile at him. He would never allow her to hold his hand in full sight of his father or any man.

  ‘I hope those flowers don’t die from the heat in the boot of the car,’ Nola said testily. ‘Mary Kate gave me very clear instructions as to what she wanted me to buy.’

  The words hung in the air and no one replied.

  Rosie thought back to the previous evening, when Nola had come to the house from the post office, having just taken another call from Mary Kate. ‘Is there tea in that pot, Rosie?’ she’d asked.

  Rosie was heaping fried potatoes and bacon onto a plate for Finn, who had not long arrived home from playing out, was starving hungry and was ignoring the conversation taking place around him, his eyes fixed on the frying pan.

  ‘What did Mary Kate have to say?’ said Michael as he stole a fried potato from the plate and popped it into his mouth. Grinning, he rubbed his son’s hair and turned his attention back to his mother.

  ‘Tell him,’ said Seamus, who took a cup of sweet tea from Rosie.

  ‘Seamus, since when have you told me when to speak and what to say?’ Nola glared at her husband, who appeared to shrink before Rosie’s eyes. ‘Oh, well, she was just saying she had a notion to travel, that’s all.’

  Michael’s response was the closest thing to a roar Rosie had ever heard. As he gesticulated, only Rosie knew that the white stains on the backs of his hands were from the limewash he’d been using to brighten up Mary Kate’s walls. She herself had sat each night hemming and sewing a new bedspread and matching curtains.

  She was brought back into the moment by Nola’s voice. ‘Michael, will the flowers survive until we get there in this heat? I don’t want to be letting her down.’

  Michael appeared to have also been thinking about the previous night’s call. ‘’Tis a hot day, Mammy. I’m going to take Mary Kate to Dublin with me next week. I thought if she wants to travel, I’ll take her with me and teach her how to do the buying for the shop.’

  ‘Can I come, Da?’ Finn lurched forwards on his seat and put his face in the gap between his father and Seamus.

  ‘You can when you’re older. Not yet though.’

  Finn sank back again. ‘Mary Kate gets everything.’

  Rosie picked up his hand and smiled at him. He flopped to the side and, dejected, laid his head on her shoulder.

  ‘I think that’s a grand idea, Michael,’ said Nola. ‘Mary Kate will love that. It will make her feel just the lady too, choosing stock for the shop. Mind, don’t let her be too much like her mammy – whenever you took Sarah to Dublin, she always came back with a new dress.’ She turned to look out of the window and began to chuckle at her private memory of Sarah.

  Finn squeezed Rosie’s fingers and looked up at her, understanding, his eyes full of sympathy. She kissed the top of his head and gazed out at the distant hills. Her opinion was not required. It occurred to her that the only person other than Keeva who’d spoken to her in the past hour was Finn. She was a poor second to Sarah. The ghost of Michael’s first wife haunted her and that was unlikely to change now that Sarah’s double, in looks as well as temperament, her daughter Mary Kate, was coming home.

  *

  Bridget McAndrew washed up her and Daedio’s pots in the sink. Nola and Seamus wouldn’t be back until the evening and she had promised to sit with Daedio for part of the day. His bed was adjacent to the fire, and if pushed, she could have spent the day sat in the rocking chair, talking over old times with Daedio. It had been arranged that when Bridget left, Teresa Gallagher would come up from the presbytery to take over.

  ‘Have a sleep now until Teresa gets here,’ Bridget said.

  Daedio had been quiet, almost withdrawn. Bridget had tried to contact Annie for him, his long-dead wife, but, unusually, she’d failed. As she turned from the sink, he was staring at her back, a look of deep concern on his face. Picking up her hat, she removed the long pin and placed it on her head, sliding the pin back through the tight bun of grey hair. ‘Don’t be worrying about Annie, we’ll have better luck next time. Maybe it’s me, Daedio. Maybe as I am getting older, the sight is leaving me, although they say it should get stronger.’

  Daedio shook his head. ‘It’s not that, Bridget. Don’t go yet. Pour us a drink of something strong and come and sit here before that woman with a face more pinched than Mrs Doyle’s skinny arse gets here. I’ve something to show you.’

  ‘What have you got to show me you couldn’t let me see an hour ago when I got here?’

  Daedio slid an airmail letter out from under the blanket on his bed and held it out for her to see. ‘Get the drinks,’ he said. ‘We’re going to need them.’

  3

  The convent bells pealed on the hour, an insistent ringing down of the seconds as Roshine thundered up the flight of wooden stairs to the dormitory she’d slept in for the past nine years. ‘Mary Kate, Mary Kate, where are you?’ She almost flew around the corner, grabbing onto the doorframe to steady herself as she stopped dead in her tracks.

  Mary Kate was standing in front of the looking glass on the wall by the bathroom door, fixing her shining gold plaits into place with a sky-blue ribbon.

  ‘What in God’s name are you doing up here? People are alr
eady arriving and Mother Superior said we cannot be late.’ Roshine lived in fear of everyone and everything; she was the absolute opposite to Mary Kate, which was why they had been good friends since the day they’d arrived. Roshine lived in awe of Mary Kate’s nerve, and Mary Kate’s audacity was tempered by Roshine’s cautious and often sensible words of warning.

  ‘Holy Mother, you think I’m going to be late today of all days?’ Mary Kate laughed as she pulled both ends of the ribbon tight. ‘You don’t have to be worrying about me no more, Roshine.’ She let her plaits drop and turned to face her friend. Her eyes shone with barely contained excitement and her full smile lit up the room. ‘Daddy says I have hair like Rita Hayworth and I’ve seen a picture in a magazine in Mrs Doyle’s – won’t it be just the thing when I can style my hair like her and not have to tie it in plaits every single flamin’ day?’

  Roshine looked shocked. ‘Shush now, if they hear your blaspheming, they’ll say we aren’t fit to be leaving. Here…’ She grabbed a piece of paper out of her skirt pocket. ‘Here, before I forget, this is the number of my da’s surgery. You can call and get a message to me anytime you want. When am I going to see you again?’

  Mary Kate studied the piece of paper. There was no phone at home. ‘Sure, why do we need a phone here when Mrs Doyle has one in the post office?’ her da always said when she asked could they have one. ‘The only person we would be telephoning would be Mrs Doyle. Who else do we know who has one?’ Keen as she was to embrace modernity, Mary Kate had seen his point: no home in Tarabeg had a telephone. Phoning Roshine would mean that anyone who was in the post office when she made the call would hear every word she said and so she knew she would not be calling Roshine from Mrs Doyle’s. What Mary Kate had to tell her could not be heard by others.

  ‘My da comes to Galway to buy stock for the shop once a month – I’ll get him to give me a seat in the van and I’ll call to let you know when I’m coming. That’s if he’s still speaking to me when he knows I want to go and live with my Aunty Bee and Captain Bob in Liverpool.’