A Letter From America

by Geraldine O'Neill

  “They might come back once they’ve had time to think about it. If Fiona or anyone mentions it to me, I’ll certainly put in a good word for him.”

  “You’re very good, Angela,” her aunt said. “I feel better about it all after talking to you, and I’ve started a Novena to St Joseph. I read in a holy book somewhere that he’s the saint you should pray to about jobs and, since Joseph has the same name, I thought he might be the best one to go to.”

  “I’ll say a prayer for him too,” Angela promised. “And next time I’m in church I’ll light a candle.”

  “You’re a great girl,” Aunt Catherine said. “I wish I had a daughter like you myself.”

  “I’ll see you at the weekend – give my love to Joseph.”

  After she hung up, Angela stood in the musty phone box for a few minutes, mulling things over. What was wrong with her mother, she wondered, that she could be so hard and cold with her own family? She felt it, and so did her sister and nephew.

  Fiona and Bridget, she thought, obviously had no big problems with their mam. Of course they laughed and joked behind her back about her fussiness over things like good manners, good clothes and making a good impression – and her disapproval of women she deemed ‘forward’ and men who used bad language in the bar. But underneath it, Angela felt the girls had a close relationship with their mother, because she had always been there for them when she was needed.

  Chapter 6

  After her father left to go down to the bar, Fiona could tell that her mother did not want to talk about or even refer to the incident. Nance came down into the kitchen, and put the radio on while she tidied around, and then checked what was in the fridge for Mrs Mooney to use for dinner the following day. After that, she told Fiona she was going upstairs to have a bath.

  Fiona turned the television on and watched a film for a while, but it had an over-elaborate plot which needed full concentration – which she did not have tonight. Her mind kept flitting back to the row, and she wondered how her sisters would have reacted had they been at home and heard it. She would say nothing about it. As the eldest she had always felt she should keep Angela and Bridget away from things that might upset them. But at times like this it was hard – she would have liked to talk it over with someone who would not think she was being disloyal.

  Just after ten o’clock she went up to her bedroom thinking she would check her suitcase again, and to read over some of Elizabeth’s letters which gave details about the apartment in Park Avenue. Her own bedroom was the first one at the top of the stairs. She noticed that the bathroom, which was next to her room, was now empty. She looked down towards the end of the hallway, to her parents’ room, and could see a light shining from under the door. Her mother must have gone straight to bed. Fiona decided she would go to bed too. By the time her father came in from the pub, both of them would be asleep.

  She hoped the row would be all forgotten in the morning. She only wanted to think about good, positive things now before leaving. Things like making sure she had all her clothes packed in a certain order, and had smaller items like her new stockings, tights, brassieres and toiletries packed in the little compartments of her case.

  She went into the bathroom, had an all-over wash and brushed her teeth. Then she came back to her bedroom. It was chilly as the fire had died down in the grate, so she got undressed quickly and into her warm striped pyjamas. She took Elizabeth’s recent letters down from the mantelpiece and put them on the bed, then went over to her record player and plugged it in. She padded across the floor to the open pine cupboard and flicked through the stack of LP and single records that she had lined up on the shelves.

  She lifted out two single records, ‘Strangers in the Night’ by Frank Sinatra and ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – two songs she loved and knew would help lift her mood. Elizabeth had mentioned the singles to her in her letters and, when they became available to buy in Ireland, Fiona had asked Angela to go into one of the big shops in Dublin and get them for her. She put them on the turntable now, one on top of the other.

  As she listened to the romantic music, her thoughts drifted to Paul Moore. As always, she felt bad knowing that she had hurt him by choosing a new life in New York over their relationship. She thought he had understood, but then he had asked if they could meet up to talk a few days later. She thought it was just to talk and part as friends, and had been unprepared when he asked her not to go to America. She had been even more unprepared when he told her he loved her and that, if she stayed, he wanted them to become engaged.

  As kindly as she could, she explained that she just had to go to New York. She told him she cared for him very much but that if she didn’t go she knew that she would regret it. Later, she might begin to blame him for holding her back. He had just looked at her, then nodded and walked away.

  Remembering Paul triggered off other uncomfortable little memories that she had buried away – things she had dismissed at the time, and blotted out. She had wanted one last happy Christmas at home with her family and friends, then for everyone to wave her off, smiling and looking forward to seeing her again when she came back for a holiday.

  She wanted them to say that they were going to save and come out to visit her in New York. She wanted to hear them saying what a wonderful time she would have with her friend Elizabeth there, and speculate about the great opportunities that awaited her.

  What she hadn’t wanted was to feel guilty about breaking off with Paul Moore, or to feel worried about leaving her parents when they weren’t getting on.

  And there had been another little incident with Angela over Christmas which was also playing on her mind.

  It was one night when Bridget had gone to bed just after her parents, leaving Fiona and Angela listening to records in the parlour. The conversation had been light and easy, and they had been laughing about Fiona’s description of some of the drunken singers down in the pub earlier on.

  “I don’t know how you can do it,” Angela had said. “How you can work in the bar and the shop. Especially the bar. I’ve always felt very self-conscious in there with all the men.”

  “It’s something you get used to, and most of them are nice. If they’re not, Dad and Patrick see to them.”

  “I don’t think I would ever get used to it, but then we’re very different...due to our circumstances.”

  A small silence had fallen and they had both lifted their coffees.

  “It’s a pity we never got the chance to be really close as sisters when we were growing up,” Angela had suddenly said. “I always felt different from you and Bridget. And of course I was different with my leg and everything – and spending all those years away from everyone in Dublin. That’s why I’m no good in the bar and shop, because I was never there long enough to get used to it. And I’m not blaming anyone. It’s just the way things were.” She had looked at Fiona with tears in her eyes. “I would have loved the three of us to become closer now we’re all grown up, but now that’s never going to happen with you going to New York.”

  Fiona had looked at her, not quite knowing what to say. This was something they had never discussed openly before, and she was not prepared for it now. Especially now. She knew that there was something wrong in their family because of Angela being left in Dublin for all those years – but this wasn’t the time to talk about it. That time was gone.

  Somehow, the subject had drifted on to something else, leaving the uncomfortable, unfinished conversation hanging in the air. And tonight, Fiona didn’t want to remember hurting Paul Moore or think about what Angela had said.

  She turned the record player up a little bit more. Then she lifted Elizabeth’s letters from the bed and went through them until she found the one that told her all about the outdoor ice-skating in Central Park. This was one of the first things they would do together, Elizabeth had told her, as it was an easy way to meet new people. She said it was a nice walk from the apartment and at weekends the rink was ope
n until eleven o’clock at night.

  The music stopped and then the second record dropped down with a soft thud on top of the other. Frank Sinatra’s lovely clear voice filled the room. Fiona smiled and held the letter to her chest, her mind flooding with all the possibilities, the exciting opportunities – and that special, exciting romance with an American stranger that just might lie ahead.

  As she listened to the words, all the uncomfortable memories faded off in the distance. This time next year, she thought, I’ll be listening to music in New York.

  Chapter 7

  It was almost one o’clock in the morning when Fiona woke with a start. She lay for a few moments listening to the rain pattering on the window, and wondering what had woken her. Then she heard the door knocker banging again. This time she moved quickly, switching on her bedside lamp and leaping out of bed, then rushing across the floor barefoot to the door.

  She called along the hallway to her father. “Dad! Dad! There’s someone at the door.”

  There was silence, during which the door knocker went again.

  Damn! she muttered to herself. As she walked quickly towards her parents’ room she suddenly wondered if her father had drunk too much and it had put him into a heavy sleep. Given his mood before he went out, she supposed there was a chance he had.

  She rapped on her parents’ bedroom door.

  “Dad!” she called again, turning the door handle to open it. “There’s somebody at the door.”

  Her mother sat up, clearly just having awoken. Her usually perfect hair was flat on one side and bunched up on the other, as though she had been tossing and turning. She looked at the other side of the bed, still not fully awake. “Your father’s not here...he’s not come home yet.” Her voice was vague. She looked at the clock. “That must be him now...”

  “He must have forgotten his key.” Fiona turned back into the corridor, sighing to herself. “I’d better go down and let him in.”

  She felt a sudden shiver run through her and thought for a moment to go back to her bedroom to get her dressing-gown and slippers, but then the knocker sounded again.

  “Hang on a minute!” she called, the irritation clear in her voice. “I’m coming as quick as I can!”

  As she went down the staircase barefoot, she hoped again that the argument earlier hadn’t set him off drinking. It wasn’t often that he did it, but there had been occasions where he had come home the worst for wear. As she walked across the cold tiled floor she thought it would be the dreadful ending she didn’t need to what had been a dreadful night.

  She opened the door, stepping back into the hallway to make sure she didn’t get wet. And then she saw Patrick standing there, and her hands came up to hold her pyjamas tight to her neck.

  He had no coat on and his jersey and shirt collar were damp with rain. “You have to come down,” he told her, pointing towards the bar. “Your father’s not well.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Is he drunk?”

  “God, no! No, it’s not that.” He backed away a few steps. “He suddenly collapsed and we got him up into a chair, and then he collapsed again. We called the doctor, and when he checked him he phoned for an ambulance and the priest. They’re all waiting down in the bar. The doctor said to get you and your mother.”

  “The priest and the doctor are there?” The situation was beginning to sink in, and her voice was faltering now. “Do they think it’s that serious?”

  Patrick nodded. “Yes...the doctor said it could be his heart.”

  “Fiona?” Nance’s voice called from the staircase. “What’s wrong?”

  “Get dressed quick!” Fiona called back to her mother. “Dad’s not well and we need to go down to the bar.”

  “What’s happened?” her mother called down. “What’s happened?”

  Fiona looked at Patrick. “I’ll have to go to my mother and explain. You go back and we’ll follow you down as quickly as we can.”

  Shortly after, they arrived in the bar, damp with rain and shocked and fearful. They were too late. They found that Seán Tracey had just taken his last breath.

  That night Fiona felt the hours drag by minute by minute, as they moved from the bar to the hospital and then eventually back home. Back to cry and drink tea and cry again – to try to digest the fact that her father was indeed dead and they would never again see him alive. Back to wonder why such a thing could have happened so suddenly.

  But not completely unexpectedly, Fiona discovered. The visit to the hospital in Dublin had not been as routine had her parents had told her. Results from previous tests had shown that her father had problems with several blocked arteries, and the heart specialist had suggested further tests as there might also be problems with a leaking valve.

  “He didn’t want me to say anything to you or Bridget or Angela,” her mother had explained during a quiet moment in the hospital corridor. “He said it would only worry you when there wasn’t anything really wrong. He didn’t tell me half of what the doctors had said to him. He kept saying any pains he got was just the usual angina and that he was fine, that the tablets he got were all working grand.” She shrugged. “If I’d known it was so serious I’d have made him go to a specialist long ago.”

  Around four o’clock in the morning Nance and Fiona made their way back upstairs to bed.

  “I’ll never sleep,” her mother said when they reached the top of the stairs, “but we need to try. Even the rest will do us good. We have a lot to face in the morning.”

  “We’ll have to let Angela and Bridget know first thing.”

  “We’ll let them both get a good night’s sleep, because they won’t get many more over the next few days. After they’re up and about we’ll ring Angela’s office and then later in the morning we’ll ring the nuns and say that someone will come and collect Bridget.” She turned to Fiona and took both her hands in her own. “I can’t believe what’s happened and that I’ll never see your father alive again. I can’t believe it. I know we had that stupid argument earlier tonight – but you know it’s rare that we disagreed. We got on well most of the time. We were happier than most couples I know.” She squeezed Fiona’s hands tightly. “I don’t want us to think of that row again or for either of us to mention it to the other girls or anyone else. Your father was a private man and he wouldn’t want us to think about it. He would prefer us to remember all the good times.”

  “I know,” Fiona said quietly. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it anyway.”

  “Good girl.” Her mother let go of her hands now and turned to walk down the corridor to the bedroom she had shared with her husband for twenty-odd years. Then, just as Fiona opened her bedroom door, she turned again and said, “Fiona, thank God you were here tonight. I don’t know what I would have done without you. I don’t know what I would have done if it had happened in a few weeks’ time and you were in New York.”

  “I’m glad I was here too,” Fiona said. “I can’t imagine how I would have felt being so far away.”

  “You’ve always been a thoughtful girl. You always know to do the right thing. Your father and I have always said that...” Her mother stopped, as though she was thinking of something else to say.

  Fiona waited to hear her say something about New York and what she should do. But when her mother simply said, “Goodnight now,” she realised that she was being selfish, thinking only of herself and her plans.

  They hadn’t even had her father’s funeral yet and here she was expecting her mother to cope all on her own.

  As she walked into her bedroom and saw the packed suitcase over by the wardrobe, it struck her that her plans for New York seemed much more real than the fact her father had just died. She could not imagine that her father would never walk into this house again, that tomorrow he would not be in the bar chatting to customers while she and her mother were next door in the shop. That he would not be here in the morning with the fire going and the kettle boiled as he did every morning.

  She could not envisage the day
s that would follow this night, where people would come and go in the house, and her father would at some stage be brought back to the house in a coffin. The thought of it brought a dry lump to her throat. She closed the door behind her and went over to sit on the edge of the bed.

  From this night on her life was going to change – all their lives were going to change. Before this had happened, everything was all about dates and travel plans and far-off places, but now the future was just a big blank space.

  The family would just have to try to get through each day as it came. Maybe, she thought, after some time had passed, they would get into a new routine. Maybe it would become clearer as to how the coming months and years would be in this house and in Tracey’s bar without her father.

  She lay back in the bed, her eyes closed. It was too soon for any plans.

  She would take it one step at a time. Tomorrow afternoon she would phone Mrs Davis in Park Avenue and explain what had happened.

  Chapter 8

  Bridget woke and looked across the silent room to the tall windows. The crack in one of the heavy silk curtains let in a sliver of grey morning light which told her it was around six o’clock. She had another hour and a half before she had to move.

  She closed her eyes again and lay for a while, taking in the silence of the great old building that had been home to her and all the other girls for over four years since she had come here at the age of thirteen. At times, in this place with its thick, panelled walls and ornately coved ceilings, silence was all there was. It dominated everything and wrapped itself around her. At first she had found the lack of laughter or any kind of voices strange, but she now found the silence almost reassuring.

  She turned over on her side, conscious of the groans from the springs in her single mattress. Someone across the room coughed several times and she listened carefully, trying to work out who it was. She then became aware of the sleeping sounds from the long rows of beds on either side of the dormitory – the light snores, the creaking as bodies turned, moved around, the sighs and the inhale and exhale of breath. After a short while she noticed the rhythmic sound of her own breathing. It was always a sign she was becoming tired again. She closed her eyes and fell back asleep.