by Faith Hogan
‘Speaking of which, where is father?’ Robert asked.
‘He wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I told him to rest for a while, he must have fallen asleep again.’ His mother shook her head. Of course, what she would not say was that the old man was beginning to turn a little bit funny these last few weeks. Small, peculiar things he said at first, made Robert laugh, knowing that it was inappropriate didn’t help of course, that was just Robert’s sense of humour. He had come into the reception one day to find his father shining the old slate over mantle with a pair of his mother’s best bloomers. His mother hadn’t been pleased. Still there had been no move made to take him for any kind of medical assessment. His father had just shook his head sadly. ‘There’s nothing to be done, son, old age, nothing to be done.’
‘So then, Robert, what brings you to visit on this grand day?’ Archie asked as he sat down opposite him.
‘Just passing by and I thought I’d come in and sample some of these fruit scones the whole place is raving about.’ He smiled across at his mother. Funny, but even now he wanted to please her. Knowing that she had her heart set on Iris for Archie put another obstacle in the way of having her and maybe it made Iris even more attractive for it.
‘Has she been telling you about Iris and how she’s desperately trying to matchmake us?’
‘Sure, there’s no harm in that, is there?’ Mrs Hartley wanted more than anything for her sons to marry nice respectable girls. She wanted them happy and settled like every other woman her age in the village. ‘Wanting the best for your boys, wanting things to go on as I’ve left them…’
‘Now, mother, don’t be putting pressure on poor Archie.’ The last thing Robert wanted was a proposal out of this. They changed the subject to hotel matters. Robert sat a little on edge in the hope that Iris might arrive back and join them. Before long there she was, standing at the end of the kitchen delicately taking off her light cashmere cardigan.
‘Ah, my dear, you had a nice walk?’
‘Yes, thank you Mrs Hartley. I’ve just been talking to Mrs Armstrong.’ She looked over at Robert. ‘You saw her Robert, you saw her little boy Oisín?’
‘I didn’t take much notice, to be honest,’ but he made it sound as though he had somewhat lost his edge.
‘He’s very sick. The doctors say he’ll hardly make it through the winter,’ Iris was obviously upset.
‘Oh, dear,’ Mrs Hartley said. ‘And there’s nothing to be done?’
‘There might be. If they had a spare couple of thousand to send him to London for treatment, but they don’t have the money. Mrs Armstrong says it’s hopeless.’ Iris looked towards the clock. Robert sensed she was just passing time here, as though there was somewhere else she should be.
‘Well that can’t be right, can it?’ Mrs Hartley said sadly. ‘Surely, Robert, if everyone came together, something could be done.’ Mrs Hartley looked across at Archie. ‘Goodness knows, I remember what it was like to have a child at death’s door. We should do something for them, Robert, will you see if there’s anything we can do?’
‘Mother, you know the Armstrongs are proud people, they won’t want charity,’ Archie knew the village people well, better than Robert or their mother. Robert had seen him often pay more than he should for fish or grain because he knew a family had hit hard times. Robert thought he was a fool for it, said it often enough and he darted a look at him now that silenced him immediately.
‘There’s always something to be done,’ Robert said, sensing an opportunity to feather his own nest even more than some snivelling kid. He looked at Iris, she was swallowed up with concern for the child and he knew he had to grab this chance to move things forward. ‘I’m going there right now, to do something about it, well, are you coming?’ he said to Iris as he stalked out of the hotel.
*
The Armstrongs lived in one of the small fishing cottages that lined up along the narrow pier road. The area suffered bruising wind in winter and abrasive sun in summer and still the overwhelming stench was of poverty. The houses, one as badly kept as the next, easily housed half the village population, with an average family size of around twelve children. Mrs Armstrong, for her part, had spent most of her married life pregnant. Her husband, a runt of a man, spent his either fishing or drunk, or presumably seeing to Mrs Armstrong. The child, Oisín, was sitting contentedly in his pram. His satisfied face covered in sherbet sugar and he had the swollen look of a child who might have been better changed an hour earlier rather than leave his nappy any longer. It certainly explained the squalling on the pier.
‘Hello Oisín,’ he said to the kid as he looked through the open front door of the Armstrong cottage. He could hear Iris’s footsteps following in his wake. ‘Mrs Armstrong, hello. Mrs Armstrong, are you there?’ he called into the tiny cottage.
After a minute, Mrs Armstrong emerged from the far end, clothes pegs gripped firmly between her lips, an astonished look on her face.
‘Oh, Mr Hartley, what can I do for you?’ Her look said she wondered if perhaps he wanted the sherbet back.
‘No, Mrs Armstrong, it’s what we can do for you that we wanted to talk about. Can we come in?’ Robert’s voice was like velvet. He watched as the old girl dropped the clothes pegs and smoothed her hair after she had hung her apron on a door hook.
‘Of course, I’m afraid it’s not as fancy here as you’re used to, but you’re welcome.’ She pulled out a seat at the kitchen table; there was no offer of tea – that was a luxury, not offered quickly in poorer houses.
‘It’s just, Iris was telling me, about Oisín…’ he looked across at Iris whose expression was unreadable to him.
‘I hope it’s all right, Mrs Armstrong, but I was so upset, he’s such a lovely boy.’ He was laying it on thick, but it seemed to him that most women couldn’t tell the difference.
‘He is that, and to look at him, you’d swear he’s perfect, but it’s the heart, you see, any bit of go at all and he’s out of puff. There’s no hope here, only a matter of time, I’m afraid. They won’t chance a heart operation on a child in Ireland, that’s what the doctor said.’
‘That’s what Iris told us, but she said that there might be help elsewhere?’
‘Oh aye for the likes of…’ she stopped for a moment, remembering who she was speaking to. ‘A trip to London to some fancy hospital, well, it’s not for the likes of us, I’m afraid. I’d have as much hope of my Willie bringing us there in his old fishing boat as I have of paying a fare to get across the Irish Sea.’
‘Did the doctor mention how much it would cost?’
‘He didn’t have to, I know it’d be more than I can afford.’ Mrs Armstrong bit her lip for a moment. The knowledge of the world she was brought up to know was not enough to cover things like hospitals in London. ‘It’d be thousands, I’m sure.’
‘Well, maybe we should find out?’ Robert said gently.
‘What would be the point? It would be like dangling a carrot before a rabbit and then whipping it away again. That’s just plain cruel, that is.’ She shook her head.
‘There’s every point,’ Iris said the words quietly. ‘Mrs Armstrong, what if we were to all join together and see if we couldn’t raise the money to send Oisín for his operation.’
‘But I couldn’t ever hope to pay it back, you see, we’ll never have that kind of money.’ She gazed at the floor and, in that moment, Robert began to wonder if in fact she was even half as old as he would have guessed.
‘You wouldn’t be paying this back, it would be a…’
‘Charity, the Armstrongs aren’t charity cases. I’m sorry that you’ve…’
‘I was going to say it’d be an honour to help.’ Robert bent his head forward so it was close to Mrs Armstrong. ‘It’d be an honour for me and it’d be the same for Iris. He is a lovely boy and he deserves the same chance as everyone else. It’s not charity when everyone just wants to help a little.’
‘So you’d get everyone to give a little?’ Mrs Armstrong
said, looking at him now.
‘That’s the idea. We could run a regatta or a few more tea dances or maybe a couple of big bingo games – I don’t know, something that’d bring in money.’
‘For a good cause?’ Mrs Armstrong was shaking her head. ‘My husband, I don’t think he’ll like this one bit,’ she said.
‘Mrs Armstrong, do you want some kind of decent future for the child or not?’ Robert said.
‘What kind of a question is that to ask? Of course I do, I am his mother amn’t I? My heart is broken since the doctors told me, but what is there to do?’
‘There’s plenty.’ Robert was getting up off the chair now, his head just barely scraping the low ceiling. ‘You leave Mr Armstrong to me, and we’ll get moving on this straight away. The only thing you have to do is bring him back up to Dr Frayne and find out when he can get that operation done.’
‘I don’t know what to say, Mr Hartley,’ the woman was smiling and crying all at once. A ray of hope had penetrated her miserable existence and she stuck her hand out solidly to Robert who shook it with the most warmth he could muster.
‘Come on, Iris. We have work to do,’ Robert said and they made their way out of the cottage. It seemed to Robert he appreciated fresh air more after the claustrophobic cottage. He wanted to take large gasping breaths to clear the stench of poverty from his lungs. It would be worth it, he had a feeling that Oisín Armstrong could be the key to having Iris exactly where he wanted her. The child brought something out in her and Robert had every intention of exploiting that to his own ends.
*
‘Well, that was very impressive, Robert,’ Iris said. ‘One might almost imagine there’s a bit of moral fibre lurking in there somewhere.’
‘Look,’ he rounded on her. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh?’ Her lips remained round for a second longer than it took the word to escape her and he knew he’d caught her by surprise.
‘I should have apologized sooner for the way I behaved at the bathhouse. It was ungentlemanly and it was inexcusable.’
‘Yes, Robert, it was.’ She looked him square in the eye and he knew he had met his equal.
‘I can blame the amount I had to drink or any number of other things, but I think we both know that I would be lying.’
‘Please, don’t.’ Iris began to back away from him.
‘Don’t go, I haven’t finished. I wanted to apologize; I wanted to go to the hotel and find you and say that I was truly sorry. I can see that my mother has her heart set on you for Archie and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt either him or my mother.’ No need to mention that Archie had his heart set on her too. He looked out to sea now, concentrating on something in the far distance. ‘I suppose what I’m saying is that I wish you both well and I hope we can be friends.’ It was a risk, but a calculated one. Robert thought Archie was so dry, Iris could dehydrate standing next to him, he was banking on her seeing that sooner rather than later. He turned to smile at her now, ‘Otherwise family occasions will be very uncomfortable when you are married to my brother.’
‘Robert, I…’ he could see the confusion in her eyes, hoped he had managed to convey the hurt in his own. Then she placed a hand gently on his arm, ‘Of course we can be friends. We’ll start again?’
‘For Archie,’ he said and he took a step back from her. ‘Now, you better get back to the hotel, they’ll be sending out the search parties otherwise. I’ll have a chat with Mr Armstrong on my own, if that’s okay.’ He knew as he walked away from her that she was watching him. Perhaps, she did not quite believe the transformation, but it was early days and from now, it was game on.
*
Iris, Present
Iris heard Kate’s footsteps on the tiled corridor, knew that there was urgency in them before she could read her expression at the door.
‘It’s Archie; I think he’s fallen on the stairs.’ She was trying to keep her voice calmer than her eyes, but Iris knew. Fear propelled her faster than she had moved in many years. Archie, her precious darling Archie, meant the world to her. They rushed to where he was a crumpled replica of his normal self. There was a gash on his face and his leg held awkwardly behind him on the bottom steps.
‘I’m not sure we should try to get him up,’ Kate said, her finger on pursed lips. ‘After all, we might just make it worse.’ She pulled out her phone and called for an ambulance.
‘Don’t worry, Archie,’ Iris said, but she knew her voice carried enough worry for them both.
‘I can’t remember what happened,’ there were tears in Archie’s vulnerable eyes. ‘The last I remember is coming from the bathhouse, I had to take the letter and I…’ He looked around him now, as though he hardly knew where he was.
‘It doesn’t matter, we’ll find the letter later, when we get you sorted.’ Kate soothed him and he seemed to take this in.
The ambulance men were kind and jovial. They were the right mix of gentle and strong and Iris knew they would take care of Archie for her. They put him on a stretcher, made light of the bodyboard supporting him and told Iris he would be dancing about the kitchen before she knew it.
They drove the thirty miles to the county hospital right behind the ambulance. Iris thought they would never get there, and still when they did, she couldn’t remember the journey. The worst thing they could say was that something was broken, that he couldn’t stay with her. She knew, they would not manage a week if he were confined to bed, never mind a season. Then again, with Archie sick, the business was the least of her worries, the truth was nothing mattered more to her than Archie.
The hospital was brisk and bright. Everyone, it seemed to Iris was in a terrible hurry. Nurses, doctors, and all sorts of people rushed about while they waited for news on Archie.
‘We’ll need to keep him in, just overnight, to keep an eye,’ a doctor told them. She was young and foreign and Iris had to strain to hear her soft voice. ‘There are no bones broken, but we are going to run some tests. Has he been forgetting things recently?’
‘Well, it’s our age, isn’t it; we are both a little forgetful now.’ Iris felt like she would be selling him out to say anything more.
‘Do you think he forgets words, does he find it hard to get the word he needs sometimes?’ The doctor was looking now at Kate. ‘He has been telling us things and we think he’s showing signs of dementia, has there been a diagnosis?’
‘No.’ Iris knew the word well; she saw his father in the end. She didn't want that for Archie. ‘No, but if I’m honest he is a bit more forgetful and he mixes things up. He thinks he’s back there,’ she looked down at her wedding ring. Still it meant so much to her, more as the years had passed, ‘Back there, when things were different. He mixes people up, sometimes; I think he confuses me with his mother.’ She smiled, the first time it happened they had laughed about it. As it happened more frequently, now it did not seem so funny.
The hotel seemed huge that night, as though it had grown more rooms and shadows, noises and corners. It quickly occurred to Iris that without Archie here she could not remain alone. Even with Kate, or whatever guests might be staying, it would make no difference. With Archie she had a family, without him, she was adrift in a cluster of memories and there was no way home.
*
She would get used to it, Iris told herself this resolutely. Alzheimer’s. She smiled, remembered when Archie had called it ‘Old Timers’. She told them at the hospital, his father had it. It took him quickly in the end, but then Robert helped to finish him too.
‘There are tablets; they help to slow down its progression.’ The doctor, older this time, a man who had seen it all before, handed them a script. ‘You’ll have to go to your own GP who will explain how to take them, but there is no cure.’ His eyes were gloomy; he gave this news too often. ‘Take care of each other,’ he said, getting up to continue on his rounds and Iris knew no one had time for the old. No one had time to be old and when you were, all you could do was take tablets.
*
> The box of photographs came from a small drawer in Robert’s bureau. He always kept it locked. With all the pulling apart, Kate had done on the place it was inevitable that old memories would surface among the cobwebs and dust. There were several of Robert taken at dances with various girls on his arm. He had been very handsome; a Cary Grant forever stuck in that time. The years had been kind to him. The pictures somehow brought him back to her. Iris could hear his voice if she listened closely; smooth but broad vowels lacquering charm on everyone he came across. He was not like the other men in the village. He wore linen suits and shoes made especially for him from imported leather. She remembered he smelled always of soap. Her memories of that time were so vivid it surprised her; it was all so long ago now. Iris looked at her reflection in the glass of the kitchen window. She was the right side of ninety, but she knew in her heart, the girl that she had been had all but disappeared now. She was beautiful then. Of course, it was only as she aged that she realized how beautiful she had been. Funny, it had not seemed important at the time, truly it was wasted on the young.
At the far end of the hotel, she heard the front door close. The weather forecast earlier promised gale force winds. She was glad that Kate popped in at odd hours; she kept the key to the front door and the back. ‘Just in case,’ Archie had said and he had found one of the old key rings with the Hartley name stamped proud into the brass. She was one of them now, no longer just a name never mentioned in correspondence from Pamela. Iris adored her. She was all Burns. There was none of Clive in this girl that Iris could see. Although there was so much they didn’t know about her and she about them, Iris often wondered about Kate’s mother – she had never met Adaline.
Once the hospital allowed Archie to come back to the hotel, Kate popped in for tea and home-made bread with them at the kitchen table and told them of her plans for the day. Archie had enjoyed watching the bathhouse being brought back to life. It was as though some deep part of him was resuscitated with it. Iris worried that seeing the place pulled apart might upset him. She couldn’t have been more wrong. That first day, he came back invigorated, as though the ghosts were finally gone. Iris secretly dreaded going near the place.
