Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars

by Jean Grainger

  ‘Oh I doubt that, Martha.’ The words came out as he thought them; it shocked him to hear them out loud.

  ‘What? Don’t be silly, you’re doing such a great job here, and taking care of the place, and all of us so well, of course he’d be proud.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said quietly.

  Loneliness and the need to connect in a meaningful way with someone overwhelmed him. He missed Cork so much, the companionship of Liam and Patrick, the welcome of their mothers. Even though his nature still preyed on his mind constantly, having loving and accepting friends was enough. Well, maybe not enough, but as good as he could expect. Back in Greyrock, he felt alone, isolated, and it felt like the strain was killing him, slowly.

  ‘Understand what?’ Martha asked, eyes focused him.

  ‘I’m not who you think I am,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘What are you talking about? Not who I think you are, I’ve known you my whole life.’ She was bewildered. ‘What’s the matter, Hugo? You can talk to me, you know.’

  Her head was tilted to one side, questioning.

  Hugo felt that old familiar fear of telling someone what he really was, tempered with the desperate need to confide in someone. Maybe if Martha knew, it would alleviate some of the awful pressure that was building in his head every day. He knew that everyone, the church, the law, everyone said that he was nothing short of an abomination, and he was filled with waves of disgust and revulsion. He thought about Xavier and what he did. Tortured himself with questions about how Xavier knew about him. That must have been the reason he was chosen, and then he would think of Liam. He accepted him, he didn’t turn away. He thought of his uncle in Paris, living happily with a man. Maybe it was a way to live somewhere far away like Paris. It certainly was never going to be an option in Ireland, anyway. He’d heard of pubs in Dublin where men like him went. One of the stable lads used to work in a shop across the road from this place where men could meet. He overheard him telling the others in disgust and their ribald jokes made him wince.

  Maybe Martha would understand. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t, and would go straight to her father, who would tell the parish priest and then he’d have Father O’Flynn up here casting out demons or something. Tom Courtney was a devout Catholic and the most implacable man Hugo had ever met, he would never in a million years understand. The permutations of confessing to Martha filled him with dread, but he was going to explode if he didn’t talk to someone.

  ‘Whatever it is, Hugo, we can solve it. We always did, didn’t we? Is it a girl?’ He detected a hesitation in her voice.

  Hugo turned to face her, looking straight at her.

  ‘No, it’s not a girl. I don’t know, I want this life, running Greyrock, but getting married, having children. I don’t want that,’ he said, knowing he sounded like a petulant child.

  ‘Why not?’ Martha was perplexed. Hugo was always going to come back and run Greyrock, get married, hopefully produce the next earl. That was always the future, what had changed?

  ‘Maybe I’ll leave, go to Paris or something.’ The words sounded stupid to his ears.

  ‘Paris in France? It is in France, isn’t it? I was always hopeless at geography.’ She giggled. ‘What’s so great about Paris? Why would you leave here?’

  ‘Martha, I’m going to tell you something, and I hope you won’t tell anyone.’ He tried hard to swallow.

  ‘Of course I won’t, I never said anything that time you stole the brandy and got drunk in the stables, or the time you let all Ryan’s sheep into Joanie Dunlea’s garden to get back at her for drowning the kittens. I’m like the grave, Hugo, you should know that.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I don’t like girls in the way other chaps do. I don’t want to kiss them or…’ He could feel his face reddening.

  ‘Do you want to go for the priesthood? Is that it?’ Martha was flabbergasted.

  ‘No. I don’t want to be a priest, I…I like men, I’m a homosexual.’

  The breeze buffered the leaves of the huge trees outside causing them to rustle, a moorhen screeched in the distance, and they sat in silence. Instant regret flooded through him, wishing he could turn the clock back two seconds. Eventually Martha spoke, ‘Jesus, Hugo. Don’t be daft. Like that’s not…well it’s not…the church, everyone, the guards, everyone…you might think you are...but that’s just because you’ve never...’ Martha struggled to find the words and failed.

  ‘I’m sure. I’ve always known.’ He tried to maintain his composure, but his heart was thumping wildly.

  They sat in silence, just trying to absorb the revelation. Eventually Martha spoke again and there was a determination in her voice that Hugo recognised. She was always the braver of the two of them. Once she got an idea in her head, there was no stopping her.

  ‘Hugo, we had a great upbringing, but I suppose it was strange looking back, just us, no other kids. Maybe, you just feel nervous about girls, y’know what to do. Maybe, if you went with a girl, then you’d realise...’

  She was moving closer to him. Dread, panic, and revulsion threatened to engulf him. His heart felt like it was going to leap out of his chest. Maybe she was right, maybe all he needed to do was be with a woman, and then he’d like it and all of this would be gone.

  Martha wound her arms around his neck and began to kiss him. He made himself encircle her waist and responded as best he could. Every fibre of his being felt like it was wrong, but he persevered. Maybe this would cure him if he could just endure it. Still kissing him, she peeled off first her clothes and then his. She was pretty, he knew that, and he trusted her. Somehow, he managed to do what was required of him. He’s heard enough in a boys’ boarding school to know what to do, even if it felt awful. Martha was gentle and loving and kind and he knew her motives were honest. More than him, she had a sense of order about her world. She was not trying to inveigle her way to being the next Mrs FitzHenry. She was a friend, trying to show him what he was missing. The entire experience was an ordeal and, afterwards, he had to use every ounce of strength he had not to run.

  Martha pulled a rug over them and held him to her breast.

  ‘There, now that was nice, wasn’t it? You just need a bit of practice. Nobody need ever know about this, Hugo. I don’t want you thinking I’ve notions of you, I just wanted you to see...well, what you were missing really, I suppose.’

  ‘It was. Thanks, Martha.’ He barely trusted himself to get the words out. He dressed as soon as he could, and they walked back towards the house.

  ‘Have you done that...you know...before?’ he asked, curious now at her expertise.

  ‘Once. It was last summer, remember Finbarr? The groom that was here for a few months? Well, we were...well, I thought we were going out together, but he left. I found out afterwards he was with at least two other girls at the same time.’ She sounded sad.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He couldn’t think of anything else to say. The canopy of trees cast shadows on the ground as they walked, totally alone in the woods.

  ‘It’s okay. I wish I hadn’t done it with him because he turned out to be such a rat. You’re different, though, I hope you feel better now, Hugo. Y’know about all that other stuff...’

  Hugo couldn’t let her think she had cured him or converted him. He couldn’t live with yet another lie. It felt like he was being crushed by the weight of the secret he had to keep. He stopped and faced his oldest friend.

  ‘I’m sorry, Martha, I’m so sorry, and please, it’s not you, you are lovely and so...so kind to do what you did for me, but it doesn’t change anything. I wish, you’ve no idea how much, I wish with all my heart that I could have just realised after making love with you, that I just...but I can’t. I’m the way I am, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.’

  ‘It’s okay, Hugo.’ She put her arms around him, and they stood together in the forest, each lost in their own thoughts.

  He’d have given anything to have someone to talk
to, Liam, Patrick, or his father. Liam was out of bounds by the seminary. They wrote every week, but he couldn’t explain in a letter. In contrast, Patrick was getting on so well in his job, he had a girlfriend he was crazy about, and much to his family’s delight and relief Joe Lynch seemed to be on the missing list. Nobody had seen him in weeks, and Patrick said they lived in hope of the knock on the door from the guards saying they’d found his body. Hugo knew better than to admonish his friend for such unchristian thoughts. Patrick’s house didn’t have a telephone; very few private houses did so even though there was one at Greyrock, which was useless apart from allowing him to speak to his mother in their house in Mayfair. Anyway, Patrick still didn’t know what the Lord of the Manor really was, but it would have been nice just to hear his voice. He thought about going to visit Mrs Tobin, but he was afraid—she was a very astute woman, and she would know something was wrong. He couldn’t bear to even think about how she would react to a revelation of homosexuality. No, he’d have to stay away.

  He and Martha walked back to the house in silence and parted in the stable yard. He wanted to find the right words, something to make her realise that he was grateful, that he appreciated what she had done, but nothing seemed right. She smiled ruefully and went in the servants’ door.

  Hugo looked into Delia’s stable, but she was gone. Tom would have arranged to have her moved and buried quickly.

  ‘I’ll put her above in the pet cemetery.’

  Hugo turned around, Tom stood behind him, pipe between his teeth.

  Hugo thought of all the hamsters, kittens, ponies, and dogs that had been buried in that special plot over the years. The best loved animals of the FitzHenrys were there for centuries, on a hilly spot looking over the ocean. Each animal had its own little headstone; Delia would have hers, too.

  ‘Thanks, Tom.’ Hugo tried to keep his voice level. Tom was kind but gruff, a man’s man and couldn’t bear any emotional rubbish as he called it. Apparently, even when his beloved wife died, he shed not a tear. The man was granite all the way through.

  In the weeks that followed, Hugo walked the estate and worked sixteen- and seventeen-hour days. Tom Courtney urged him to pull back a bit, but he didn’t want to. Physical work exhausted his body so when he went to bed, he slept a deep, dreamless sleep. On the rare occasions he did dream, he dreamed he was back in St Bart’s and Xavier was walking the corridors. He would wake in a sweat, his heart pounding. On those nights, he started drinking brandy to make him sleep, he woke in the morning with a pounding headache but at least he slept. The alternative was the endless nights of pain and self-loathing. He never felt lower.

  Chapter 17

  ‘Mr Lynch, there’s someone here to see you.’ The young secretary entered the office Patrick shared with two others. He still was trying to get used to being called Mr Lynch by someone his own age. She was very pretty as well, which made it even stranger. They chatted often during their coffee breaks, and she was extremely nice. Not his type though, she wasn’t into clothes and makeup the way the girls were down in the Arcadia. She played camogie and was much more of a tomboy and though Patrick secretly didn’t rate the girls’ version of hurling as being up to much, she was actually on the Cork team so she must be handy enough at it. They used to joke about who could score from a sideline cut from the farthest out, and she said that someday she’d show him how it was done properly. She might have been a nice match for Liam if he wasn’t hell-bent on the priesthood he’d often thought, she was kind and gentle like he was.

  ‘Thanks, Helen,’ he replied, wondering who could want to see him at work. His clients, the small businesses for whom he did the accounts never called to the office. He usually went out to their premises once a month, gathered up all the invoices, receipts, petty cash chits, and so on and took them back to the office where he did up the monthly accounts. It wasn’t the most fascinating job in the world, but the pay was good, the hours reasonable, and the man he worked for, Jim O’Neill, was a decent sort. He had been there since he left school and was studying for his accountancy exams by night. Or at least he was supposed to be, most nights he was cycling out to Blackrock to see his girlfriend, a cracker called Jackie. Jackie, short for Jacqueline, just like the late American president’s wife, and she was every bit as gorgeous, too. His mam was forever giving out about his spending all his time and most of his wages on her, but she was a high-end girl. She expected regular presents and nights out, she wasn’t going to stick around waiting for some fella with his head in the books every night of the week. Mothers didn’t understand that, though.

  Hugo seemed impressed when he’d shown him her picture, but then Hugo wasn’t the best judge of these things, he supposed. He was probably more into the pearls and twinset kind of woman with an accent that would cut butter. He wondered what Liam would make of Jackie, he’d probably say she looked very glamorous or something, but he wouldn’t have a clue. Patrick often shook his head at how uninterested in women his two best friends were. It was a mystery to him, he loved going dancing, seeing the girls in their dresses, and big hairdos and makeup. The more dolled up the better as far as he was concerned.

  He walked down the dun brown corridor, off which lay offices with men working on sets of accounts behind doors of frosted glass. The mustard linoleum caused his shoes to squeak as he walked towards the reception area. He thought about where he would take Jackie on Saturday night. There was a good showband playing in the Arcadia, The Clippers, and they played all the American stuff, but it was three and nine to get in, multiply that by two, plus drinks, it was an expensive night out. Jackie had hinted that if Patrick wasn’t going, a lad from the post office had offered to take her, so he was going to have to shell out or miss out and see his best girl on some other lad’s arm.

  He pushed the door with the frosted glass to enter the reception and was alarmed to see two Gardaí standing there. Immediately, he thought, It’s my father, they’ve found him.

  ‘Mr Patrick Lynch?’ the older of the two policemen asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m Patrick Lynch.’ A thousand emotions churned up inside him, relief, fear, dread, joy. It was hard to process.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Donal McMullan and this is Garda John Holland. Is there somewhere we could talk?’

  Mr O’Neill came out of his office, the main one adjoining the reception, obviously having overheard the guards’ arrival.

  ‘Use my office if it’s convenient. I hope everything is all right,’ he said with concern on his face.

  ‘Thank you, sir. That would be fine.’ The younger guard gestured to Patrick to enter the office, followed by both officers.

  ‘Patrick, I’m afraid we have some bad news for you. You might want to sit down.’ The detective’s voice was grave. Patrick knew what was coming, he was ready, he’d been ready for years.

  ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you, your mother has been killed.’

  Their faces swam in front of Patrick’s eyes. They had it wrong; it was his father that was dead, not Mam. Sure, she was at home with the girls. She’d be putting his tea on now; he’d be home in an hour.

  ‘No, it’s my father who is missing. He’s the one who…’ Patrick knew he wasn’t making any sense. ‘What…what happened?’

  ‘We’re not too sure yet, son. Some of the neighbours heard shouting and screaming, your little sisters ran out to a Mrs Tobin, that’s where they are now, but by the time we got there, your mother had passed away. She had been assaulted. As I said, we’re not sure what happened yet, but…’

  ‘My father. It was him.’ Patrick knew with a conviction that went deep into his bones. His father had finally murdered his mother. He’d come close so many times, he thought back to the time he thought Liam had killed him. His father’s rages were unstoppable, he knew that’s what had happened. He came back, from whatever hole he was hiding in for the past few months, and laid into his poor mother, and the girls looking on. He tried to maintain his composure, squeezing his
eyes shut and breathing deeply.

  ‘Have you got him?’ he asked.

  ‘Your father? No, well, if it was him, he fled the scene. Though your sisters did say it was him, and we’ll pick him up the moment he’s spotted. Every guard in the city is looking for him.’

  ‘Where is she now? My mam?’ Patrick knew he was in charge of the family now. He had to keep it together.

  ‘An ambulance took her to the Mercy, but a doctor pronounced her dead at the scene.’ The older guard’s tone was kind, but he obviously thought the only way to deliver news like this was straight, with no frills or platitudes.

  ‘I want to see her, my sisters will be all right with Mrs Tobin. She knows not to let them out of her sight.’ He drew a ragged breath. ‘I’ll just get my jacket.’

  The younger guard explained quickly what had happened to Mr O’Neill, who offered his car to drive Patrick wherever he needed to go.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Patrick, take as much time as you need. If there’s anything we can do, anything at all…’

  Patrick nodded his thanks and took the jacket Helen was holding for him. She squeezed his hand in sympathy, and he followed the guards out to the squad car.

  He stared out the window as they drove through the city centre towards the hospital, located on the other side of the river from their home.

  He was directed and accompanied to the morgue where he formally identified his mother’s body. Her face was purple and puffed up, her lip cut; a chunk of her hair had been ripped from her scalp. He barely recognised her.

  He couldn’t get the words out, he just nodded and whispered, ‘That’s my mam.’

  The older guard put his arm on his shoulder, and Patrick let the tears flow.

  ‘Let it out, lad, you’re all right,’ he said soothingly as Patrick’s body was wracked with sobs. ‘We’ll get him, don’t you worry, and you’ll do right by your little sisters now.’