I blanched – I could not face a fry-up. ‘Just tea and toast, if you would, please.’
She looked at me with concern. ‘Grand, coming right up. You’re after looking a bit peaky. Sure you’re all right?’
That was the moment when my insides heaved and I had to dash out to the ladies’ toilets. Aoife followed a moment or two later. ‘Maria? Is there anything I can do? I’ll fetch a flannel for your face, will I? You’re not a drinker – is it something you’ve eaten?’
I shook my head, and wiped my mouth with some toilet tissue. ‘Not something I’ve eaten, no. I’m pregnant.’
‘Pregnant! Well, that’s fantastic news! Congratulations!’ Aoife looked genuinely delighted for me. I smiled at her enthusiasm, despite the way my stomach still churned. ‘I’ll get that tea and toast, to settle your stomach, so.’
‘Thanks.’ I followed her back to the bar, and sat within easy reach of the loos, just in case.
Aoife pulled up a stool and sat beside me when she brought my breakfast a few minutes later. ‘Life’s about to be all change for you then?’
‘Yep,’ I replied through a mouthful of toast. It was going down and helping.
‘I’d say your boyfriend is over the moon, is he?’
I nodded.
‘And your parents? Your mum – all mammys are ecstatic when their little girls are going to have a baby. Mine is always wanting to know when I’ll settle down with a nice man and a clutch of kids and give up this ridiculous notion of running a pub.’
‘My dad’s dead, and my mother isn’t much interested, to be honest.’ The understatement of the century.
‘Aw, sorry about your dad. But your mammy’ll feel differently when the baby’s born, sure she will. I’ll leave you in peace now – shout if you want anything more.’ Aoife patted my hand and went back to her chores.
I wondered if she was right – would Jackie soften once the baby was born? I couldn’t imagine it, and her response to my news on the phone did not make it seem likely. I tried to imagine taking our baby to meet her – if we continued our monthly meet-ups I would have to take the baby with me, so whether she liked it or not, Jackie would meet her grandchild sooner or later. Would the actual, physical reality of a warm little body wrapped in a shawl make her feel differently? Would she want to hold the child? Would she even look at him or her, or just turn away, uninterested?
*
After breakfast I decided to go back upstairs and sit quietly in my room for a while, catching up on emails and the like, in case I began to feel sick again. There was time enough for a walk later – I had planned to go up past the abandoned village and mines, to the top of the hill. The leaflet of local walks from the tourist office described fabulous three hundred and sixty degree views from the summit.
I sat on my bed, leaning against the headboard, with my laptop on my knees and fired it up. There were a few emails, one – I gasped when I realised – was from Jackie. She rarely contacted me via any means. I hesitated to open it. If it was a continuation of our phone call, containing more accusations that I had ruined her life, it would upset me again. I tried not to let her attitude affect me but it always did, every time. I’d always longed for a normal, loving, supportive mum, and every time we interacted I was reminded that was not what I had.
But I’d have to read it, sooner or later. Whatever she said in it, I had to hear. It was too much to hope that she might be emailing to apologise for what she’d said on the phone, and to congratulate me and Dan, and to say she couldn’t wait to meet her grandchild. Far more likely to perhaps be setting down in writing that she wanted nothing to do with it, as she’d said on the phone.
With shaking fingers, I clicked on her email and, as I read it, my jaw dropped open. It was not at all what I was expecting to find. Typical of Jackie to tell me something like this via an email rather than in person or over the phone, but, I conceded, at least she had told me.
Maria,
I hope your pregnancy is progressing well. I have been thinking about you a lot since you phoned me with your news, and have decided it is time to tell you some things about my past that I have always kept hidden. It is very difficult for me to do this after so many years so please forgive me if I don’t word this too well, but I will do my best.
You never knew my parents – I told you they had died long before you were born. The truth is, I never knew them either. I spent the first seven years of my life in a children’s home. I was a shy, withdrawn child, and must have seemed unappealing to couples wishing to adopt. Finally, I was placed with foster parents. They were called John and Margaret, and I loved them and was very happy with them, for almost a year. They were beginning to make plans to adopt me, I think, but then John became seriously ill and Margaret was struggling to nurse him and look after me as well, so I was sent back to the children’s home. ‘Just until Daddy John is better,’ Margaret told me, and I accepted my fate stoically, believing they would come back for me as soon as they could.
But John died, and Margaret never returned for me, and so I stayed in the children’s home, becoming even more withdrawn than before.
In my early teens, I went ‘off the rails’ a bit, and ran wild, experimenting with life, not caring about the consequences. I ended up pregnant at the age of fifteen, and despite pleading with social services to be allowed to keep the child, I was forced to give her up for adoption. Yes, somewhere out there, Maria, you have a big sister. I don’t know her name or where she lives. I didn’t even get to hold her – she was taken from me within moments of her birth.
When I was eighteen, I had a boyfriend I thought I loved, but when I found I was pregnant by him he left and I didn’t see him for dust. Nevertheless, I determined I would keep this child no matter what, love it and raise it as best I could, to make up for that earlier little girl I’d had to give up. Maria, I loved that baby-bump with all my heart. I read books on pregnancy, I saved every penny I could from my job as a supermarket cashier, I bought little Babygros and a secondhand pram and planned, planned, planned for our future. I was determined to be the very best mother I could be.
When he was born, he was blue. He didn’t so much as take a single breath. They let me hold this child, even though he just lay limp in my arms, his tiny, perfect features in an expression of eternal serenity. I named him Jonathan, I dressed him all in white and I scattered his ashes into the sea.
And then I swore I would never again give my heart to another. Losing foster parents, a boyfriend and two babies had proved to me love was too painful an emotion for me.
Your father changed all that – I could not help myself from loving him. The early years of our marriage were the happiest I’d ever known. Andy taught me how to be happy. He wanted children, but I did not – as you know. I wanted us to remain as we were, just the two of us in our own little bubble. It took him years to persuade me. I’d had one child taken by the authorities and another taken by God, and I did not want to put myself through all that again. Having children opens you up to all kinds of potential heartbreak – I knew that all too well. But for the love of him I agreed to have one child – you. While pregnant, I refused to feel attached to the growing foetus inside me in case it was stillborn like Jonathan. And when you were born I kept worrying you’d be taken away, and didn’t dare relax and love you. I suppose it became a habit – the not-loving you. Andy tried to make up for it – he was the parent you deserved. I remember the expression of besotted wonder on his face when he held the newborn you, while I felt nothing, except perhaps jealousy that he might spend more attention on you than on me, regret at the loss of our cosy life together, and fear that you might drive a wedge between us.
And now that you are to become a mother yourself, I can only hope firstly that you never have to go through the heartbreak that I did. Don’t become too attached to your child before it is born, just in case. I hope also that if all goes well, you are able to be a better and more loving parent than I was.
I am not yet sure how I will feel abou
t my first grandchild. I am not daring to think that far ahead, in case things don’t go well and you lose the baby. You took me totally by surprise, you know, when you phoned me and made your announcement. I would have preferred to have had the news in writing, so I could have pondered it alone and worked through my feelings before responding. That is why I have written to you now, to tell you my story in a way that gives you time and space to come to terms with it. I suppose you thought you were doing the right thing in telling me on the phone, so I won’t blame you for it. It would have been worse still if you’d told me to my face. Some things are better done at a distance.
Well, I have written enough here now for the moment. You and I both have some adjusting to do, I think, as we move into a new phase of our lives. If all goes well and your baby is born healthy, I shall set up a savings account in his or her name.
Yours,
Jackie
I read the email twice, struggling to take it all in. How like Jackie to email this sort of thing, but then she had explained why, and I could understand that. Two babies born before me! An older, adopted sister! I did a quick calculation – she’d be in her early forties now. And the stillborn brother Jonathan. I felt a pang of grief for the siblings I’d never known, for the heartache my mother had suffered, for the life she might have had if Jonathan hadn’t died, if her foster father hadn’t become ill . . .
I stared at the ceiling. That line about wanting to stay just the two of them – I could identify with that feeling. It articulated how I felt about my own pregnancy, how I’d been too scared to tell Dan in case it changed things between us. Oh God, was I more like Jackie than I realised, as she’d said on the phone? But then, she’d felt a connection to her babies during her first two pregnancies. I hadn’t, yet. It was still just a small bump to me, not a living being. What if I never could feel that connection?
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jackie’s revelations yet. It would take a while to make sense of it. She was right that I would need time and space to think about it all. Was this another way in which we were alike – needing to work through our feelings slowly, gradually and on our own? It’s why I’d come to Ireland, after all, to try to come to terms with the approaching changes in mine and Dan’s life.
And how should I reply to Jackie’s email? Not something to be rushed, I knew that much. Something to be talked through first, with a sympathetic friend. I picked up my phone to call Dan, but then realised he’d be out cycling and unable to spend long talking to me. Aoife was downstairs, but she’d be busy.
Declan, then. He’d listen, and advise.
I read through the email one more time, then grabbed my phone and bag and went downstairs.
‘Feeling better, hun?’ Aoife asked.
‘Loads, thanks.’ At least, my insides were churning for wholly different reasons now. ‘I’m off out. See you later.’
Where would I find Declan? As it was a Sunday I tried the church first but there was no service on. The early Mass was over, and the next one wasn’t for a couple of hours. Would Declan be out on parish business, or at home? Was it all right to just call on a priest at his presbytery? I had no idea of the etiquette here, but I was in need, and helping people was part of his job, as he’d told me himself. I plucked up courage and crossed the square behind the church, to approach the imposing grey-stone house behind. A sign to the left of the door listed Fr Declan Murphy and Fr John Maguire, as living in the house. I hadn’t realised there’d be more than one priest for the parish.
I knocked, and the door was answered by a middle-aged woman, wearing jeans and a paint-splattered sweatshirt. She had a pleasant, welcoming smile.
‘Hello, is . . . erm . . .Father Declan in?’ I asked. It felt so strange to use his title.
‘Sure, he is. I’ll holler for him.’ She turned away from me and yelled, ‘Declan! Young lady here to see you!’
She ushered me inside and, a moment later, Declan came clattering down the stairs.
‘Maria! The very person. I’ve something to show you. Come on, this way.’ He beckoned me into a room that led off the hallway. It was a library – floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered two walls, armchairs flanked a marble fireplace on another wall and a bay window overlooking a tidy garden filled the fourth wall.
‘What a gorgeous room!’ I could imagine curling up on one of those chairs with a book, with a fire roaring in the grate on a winter’s day. You’d never get me out of there. I began perusing the titles on the spines of the books. Mostly religion or history: volumes of Victorian sermons jostled for space alongside biographies of prominent Irishmen such as Michael Collins or Éamon de Valera. Incongruously, the entire Harry Potter series was tucked in amongst them all.
‘Ah, those would be mine,’ Declan said, obviously noticing me eyeing them. ‘Light relief from more worthy reading. What I wanted to show you is this.’ He crossed the room to the bookcase furthest from the door, ran his finger along a row of books and extracted one. It was a slim paperback, old, but looked cheaply produced. He handed it to me.
I turned it over and read the title on the cover: Michael McCarthy: Ballymor’s Famous Painter. A brief biography by Martin O’Dowell.
‘Wow! That’s fantastic!’ I quickly opened it and checked the flyleaf. It had been published in 1912, in Cork.
‘You can borrow it, of course. For as long as you like. I found it when I was looking for inspiration for next Sunday’s sermon. It belongs to the parish. It’s quite brief but there may be some information in it you don’t already have. The author claims his great-uncle sailed to New York during the famine on the same ship as Michael McCarthy.’
‘This is really helpful. Thank you so much!’ I wanted to sit in one of those armchairs and get reading straight away, but I’d need my laptop to take notes on. ‘I’ll read it over the next few days and bring it back before I go home.’
‘You can take it back to England if you need to. Post it back when you’ve finished with it.’
‘Cheers!’ I tucked the book into my handbag.
‘Now, you called on me before I had the chance to come and find you to tell you about the book. Was there something you wanted?’ Declan looked at me with that searching way he had, as though he could see right into my soul.
I took a deep breath, but before I could begin, Declan waved towards a chair. ‘Sit yourself down. Will I ask Jane to make us a pot of tea? She’s painting the utility room but she’ll take a moment to make us tea, I’m sure.’
‘No, thanks, don’t bother her. I’m all right.’ I perched on the edge of the chair, while Declan settled himself opposite. And then I told him the full contents of Jackie’s email. I’d barely begun when the tears arrived, but without saying a word, Declan reached to a side table and passed me a handful of tissues.
When I’d finished speaking, Declan waited a moment while I composed myself.
‘That is quite some email to receive from your mother,’ he said. ‘How does it make you feel?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know yet. I don’t know what to feel. I mean, she had a rough time – all that rejection, losing two babies. She was a rubbish mum, still is a rubbish mum, but this – well, I suppose it explains it, and that means . . . am I supposed to feel sorry for her?’
‘You’re not supposed to feel anything, Maria. Whatever you feel is all right. Confusion to start with is only natural, but give it time and your thoughts will settle down.’ He looked at me carefully, before continuing. ‘It’s a brave thing your mother has done, to set all this down in writing. I’d say, don’t respond to her just yet. Wait a while until you can get your head around it all, and work out your feelings.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I’d already thought that. I’ll go for a long walk. Always helps clear my head.’
‘I’d offer to accompany you but I’m afraid I have a busy day. I hope to be in O’Sullivan’s for a quick one this evening. Will you be all right? The forecast says rain, but this is Ireland, so who knows.’
I sm
iled. ‘I’ll take my mac, then. Yes, I’ll be fine. You’ve helped, just by listening. And thanks so much for the book.’
I got up to leave. As Declan held the door for me, he said, ‘It could be an olive branch, you know. She might be hoping for a reconciliation, before your baby is born.’
That was something to consider. But how could we be properly reconciled? She’d ignored me throughout my childhood. And, I realised uncomfortably, I’d pretty much ignored her since I was seventeen, when Dad died. On the phone she’d said I’d pushed her away, left her alone when she’d needed me most. Needed me? I’d never heard her say that before. I felt heat rise through me as I wondered if perhaps I was as bad as she was.
I hadn’t even invited her to my graduation from university. By then, at twenty-one, I’d been surely old enough to act the grown-up, but it had been easier to go on as we were, polite but distant. Was it time to change? Was Declan right, that Jackie’s email was a kind of olive branch? There was a part of me that wanted to ignore it, to continue as we had been since Dad’s death. And then the other part of me – I put a hand on my bump – was growing up at last, soon to be a mother myself, and realising that as an adult it was at least partly up to me to change things here. To make things better for both of us, and for my baby as well.
The last line in Jackie’s email said something about opening a savings account in the baby’s name. So she wasn’t going to ignore her grandchild completely then. She’d taken the first step. I realised I should stop blaming her and start thinking of what I could do to build a better relationship between us.
CHAPTER 18
Kitty
Kitty left Ballymor House with something of a spring in her step. She had a full belly, a basket of food over her arm, and a pocket full of banknotes – enough to buy Michael his future. And she had not had to compromise her integrity to do it. Thomas Waterman may have guessed the truth about Michael that she’d never wanted to reveal, but at least it meant that he had done some good and paid for his ticket. While she would never fully trust him and would always despise him for what he had done in the past, she was grateful that he had tried to make amends now, when she and Michael needed it most. Time would tell whether her parting words would have any effect – whether he’d do anything to help those who were suffering or not.
The Girl from Ballymor Page 17
