Secrets of Our Hearts

by Sheelagh Kelly

  A look of shock electrified her face, due to the indisputable evidence that this was a wedding party. Her eyes flitted back and forth over the guests, over her granddaughters, in the blue velvet dresses with white sashes and hair ribbons, and her grandsons, their cheeks like cherubs, in white shirts, grey shorts and blue ties, their brown hair neatly parted and slicked with brilliantine, and her eyes brimmed with tears of outrage.

  Equally dismayed, Niall held his breath, fully expecting a volatile outburst. But, for some reason, perhaps because she was outnumbered, Nora suddenly appeared to shrink in stature. Moreover, she seemed mesmerised and lost for words. Unsure what to do, Niall simply dealt her a civil nod, which seemed to break her spell – for she cried at him resentfully, ‘I suppose we’re not even allowed to give them Christmas presents neither!’ – before wheeling away and hobbling off to catch her bus.

  ‘Of course you are!’ the groom called after her, for the benefit of his worried children, as much as her. And, ‘Of course, you’ll be seeing your gran at Christmas,’ he reaffirmed to the youngsters, as he loaded them into one of the taxis. Then, with a look of relief at Reilly that their convergence had been no worse, he pushed Nora from his mind and climbed into the waiting cab, determined to enjoy this, his happiest day.

  And upon first glimpse of his smiling bride in her pert little hat upon her golden head, and the exquisite costume that showed off her figure, he knew that all was going to be well. After that one small hitch, the wedding could not have gone better, not merely because both Boadicea and Niall were elated that this had finally come to pass after so many hurdles, but because the alcohol provided by the groom had been multiplied fourfold, Mr Merrifield and Reilly seemingly determined to out-do each other in the amount they had provided, and equally resolute that everyone should participate. Even the children were indulged, no one minding that they went around examining empty glasses, their aim to find a drop unfinished and tilting back their heads to drain this down their throats. Ergo, by only seven thirty that evening, it was a very merry household, and looked like becoming even merrier.

  ‘Go home and fetch your squeeze-box, Georgie!’ commanded Mrs Precious, her voice competing with Reilly’s, who had until now been the one to entertain them with anecdotes. ‘Let’s have some music.’

  ‘Aw, don’t send the poor fellow all the way down Walmgate,’ pleaded Boadicea, above the calls of approval. ‘I’m sure with Pa’s voice he doesn’t need an instrument to lead us. Come on Pa, start us off!’

  And at this, old Georgie jumped up in his sprightly manner, and with hands clasped to his heart launched into his favourite love song: ‘Roses are shining in Picardy, In the hush of the sil-ver dew.’ And soon every adult in the room was swaying from side to side and joining in, rather spoiling Pa’s perfectly delivered rendition with their enthusiasm, but nevertheless creating a sentimental blurring of the eye as each remembered his or her own wedding day.

  Whilst the song was going on, Juggy had been studying each contributor, particularly Mr Merrifield and Arthur, who had no wife to accompany them, and, at the end of it, she finally got to question the latter. ‘When are you getting married?’

  To surprised laughter, he told the little girl, ‘Nobody’ll have me.’

  A great, ‘Aw!’ rippled the room.

  Juggy thought about this, then announced to the gathering something she had overheard,

  ‘Me Aunty Harriet’s expecting a happy event.’

  ‘Does that mean your granny’s moving out?’ asked a drunken Uncle Sean, with a crafty gleam at Niall, whose snigger merged with others.

  Juggy failed to understand the adult’s joke. She did not even know what a happy event was, but it had obviously amused the grown-ups so she smiled.

  Then, ‘Give ’em another, Georgie!’ whooped Mrs Precious, smacking the old man’s bottom, and with this, many more love songs were to follow, the pitch growing more and more zealous.

  So much so, that an angry fist thumped on the wall from next door.

  ‘Eh up!’ said a glassy-eyed Niall, shoving his hair into place, and grinning like the Cheshire cat at his bride. ‘We’re annoying Mrs Lavelle. I think you kids had better simmer down and think about going to bed.’

  There were moans of objection, not merely from the children.

  ‘Let ’em stay up!’ said Reilly, his big face glowing like a beet.

  ‘All right, you two can stay up a while,’ the father allowed Honor and Dom, ‘but the rest are already an hour past your bedtime.’

  ‘But aren’t you on early rota at Mass, Dom?’ Apart from birthdays and such like, there were so many other things for Boadicea to keep her eye on. But with Dominic not appreciating this interference, it seemed expedient to let it go for now. She turned to attend Juggy, who had just voiced a bright idea.

  ‘We could invite Gloria in – she might like to marry Arthur.’

  ‘There’s no might about it,’ giggled Honor, whose tongue had been loosened by the port and the excitement.

  There came a rap at the door.

  ‘Oh, no, she’s heard you,’ joked Boadicea.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ yelled a pink-cheeked Batty, hoping to delay his bedtime, and he raced off to admit whoever it was.

  It turned out to be Father Finnegan, and at his entry all of a sudden everyone was sober, or affecting to be, though this was not very convincing.

  ‘My, you all look as if you’re having a good time,’ beamed the cleric. ‘I’ve just popped in to extend my felicitations to the bride and groom –’ here he looked hopefully at the almost depleted bottles of port, ‘– though it might be easier with a glass in my hand.’

  With the filling of his glass, and everyone else’s topped up too, the priest was to remain there for a while, laughing and joking with the wedding guests, delighting the children for his presence had delayed their bedtime even further, at least until Juggy drew attention to herself.

  ‘You’ve got a button missing, Father.’ And when he looked down quizzically at his soutane, she added, ‘There’s only thirty-two.’

  ‘And so there are!’ He frowned at the one that had been lost, then his mood was one of congratulation for the child who had noticed. ‘And how come you know there should be thirty-three?’

  ‘Boadicea says, there should be one for every year of Our Lord’s life on earth.’

  There came a combined, ‘Ah!’ from the wedding guests, and not a little pleasure from Boadicea, as Father Finnegan praised the stepmother’s teachings. ‘I can see the new Mrs Doran will do just fine in keeping your children’s faith, Niall. Er, I wonder,’ he fingered the gap on his cassock, ‘is she as expert at sewing on buttons?’

  And for the next five minutes the bride was to find herself searching for a button to match the missing one, and to sew this into place, before the priest decided he had taken his fill and went on his way.

  ‘Here endeth today’s lesson!’ Arthur raised his glass, looking decidedly merrier at Father Finnegan’s exit.

  ‘Fancy having to sew on buttons on your wedding day!’ boomed Ma Precious with indignant laughter, then threw her arms round Georgie and hugged him fit to suffocate.

  Niall shook his head at the audacity of it too, then remembered the children, who were trying to make themselves look small in order to remain. ‘Eh, and now it really is bedtime,’ he told them.

  ‘They’re not likely to go while we’re still enjoying ourselves,’ proffered Sean to the other guests, his cheeks similarly ruddy to his brother’s. ‘Maybe we’d better make a move.’

  Whilst Niall happily accepted this, Boadicea seemed awfully keen to keep them here. ‘Aw, ye don’t have to!’ She sprang up, wobbled on her high heels, laughed and steadied herself, before adding, ‘Let me make everybody some supper at least.’

  ‘Aren’t we stuffed enough already?’ laughed Reilly, patting his stomach, that was swollen from all manner of pastries and sandwiches and cakes consumed earlier.

  ‘Sure, you can at least have a cup of t
ea before you go.’ Boadicea went to make it, warning the children as she went, ‘Better go and change into your pyjamas.’ When there were more objections, she nudged Honor, and murmured a suggestion, ‘Maybe if ye change out of your dress, Juggy won’t mind doing the same.’

  At last, after a cup of tea and a final bun, the smaller ones went off to bed. However, it was a good half-hour later before the two older ones finally joined their siblings upstairs, and a good fifteen minutes after that until Mrs Precious hollered, ‘Come on, Georgie, these lovebirds want to get to bed!’

  And after lining up to exchange kisses – Mr Merrifield pressing supportive hands to his daughter’s shoulders, and directing an intuitive look into her eyes – the eight guests finally departed and the house fell quiet.

  Sagging with fake exhaustion, but her face exhilarated, Boadicea flopped onto the chair beside Niall’s. ‘Peace at last! Oh, but it went well, didn’t it?’

  He reached over the arm of his chair for her hand and squeezed her fingers, kissing them. ‘Aye, I right enjoyed meself.’ His tone was deeply genuine. ‘I feared I wasn’t going to, what with Nora popping up like that.’ He had told her all about this, once the ceremony was over. ‘I’ve never seen her struck dumb before.’ He chuckled, then fell silent, rubbing his thumb along her fingers thoughtfully, as his mind turned to bed.

  But his bride had not finished with the subject. ‘About what ye said about letting her give them Christmas presents …’

  Niall’s thoughts were on more important matters. ‘I don’t see why they should go without just ’cause their grandmother’s an old so-and-so. But she isn’t delivering them in person, I’ll go and pick them up. She’s not ruining my Christmas.’

  ‘Maybe we should let her see them again,’ came the quiet suggestion.

  ‘After all she said about you?’ Jerked from his reverie, Niall’s voice held amazement.

  ‘She sounded awfully upset. I feel really sorry for her.’ Boadicea had had plenty of time to calm down in the month since the attempted abduction, and now tried to persuade her husband to show some festive spirit. ‘Sure, she’s a horrible piece of work, but she has a right to be aggrieved when I’m after replacing her daughter in your affections – and she’s a right to see her grandchildren.’

  Niall studied her determined face. ‘Well, if she’s still behaving herself nearer to Christmas, I might think about it,’ he decreed parsimoniously. ‘Now come on, don’t let’s spoil our happy day with that old bat – eh, I hope we manage to get a decent photo for our mantelpiece! I reckon all them our Sean took’ll be blurred from the amount he drank.’ As intoxicated though he himself was, he noticed then that his favourite photograph of Boadicea was not in its place on the mantel, and he pointed this out to her. But she was too happy to go looking for it. ‘Ah sure, it’ll turn up.’ And she leaned over to kiss him, then spent a while gazing into his eyes until it was no longer safe to do so, and she tore herself away. ‘Right, I suppose I’d better clear up all these glasses and plates before we go to bed. I don’t want to face them in the morning.’

  Niall removed his suit jacket, and rolled up his sleeves, and with him to help it took little time to make the living room and scullery shipshape. Then there was nothing further to delay them.

  He paused with his hand on the light, inviting softly, ‘If you go ahead, I’ll turn everything off.’

  And so she did, he closely following. The sleeping arrangements had been altered yesterday. There was only one bed now in the room that Niall had formerly shared with his sons. And though last night he had continued to share it with Brian, it should tonight have been empty. It wasn’t.

  Upon turning on the light, Boadicea suppressed laughter at the vision of the little boy asleep there. Niall gave a snort of amusement too, though it was born of exasperation, and he wasted no time in scooping Brian from the mattress.

  ‘You don’t have to move him on my account,’ whispered his wife.

  But Niall took this the wrong way. ‘You don’t need a guard; I’ve given my word.’ And he transported the sleeping child to another’s bed.

  She had started to undress when he returned, but her mood was subdued. ‘If this is what it’s going to be like, you misunderstanding every innocent thing I say, maybe I should sleep in the front parlour after all.’

  Niall was contrite, as he too began to remove his clothes, starting with his tie. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her softly, fingering the tie, unable to prevent his eyes from straying to her. ‘I know I’m a touchy bugger. I promise I’ll try not to be.’ Then, satisfied that this had served to appease her, he turned his back to lend her some privacy, and sat on the bed to remove his shirt, and to pull on the old one he wore for bed, before removing his shoes and trousers and socks.

  Then they were both in bed, and lying beside each other, trying their best not to think of what could have been.

  Niall reached down for her hand, pulled it to his lips and kissed it. ‘Thanks for a lovely day,’ he said sincerely.

  ‘Wasn’t it wonderful?’ her voice shared his joy, as she returned his kiss.

  Then both rolled over, and went to sleep.

  Needing no church bells to rouse him, Niall was up early on Sunday morning and lighting the fire for Boadicea, who had risen at the same time and was getting the breakfast ready on the gas stove. The sticks, paper and coal took a good while to radiate any heat. Meantime, the pair of them were to shiver in the December darkness, laughing across the table at each other as their teeth chattered between each mouthful of porridge.

  Then it was time to get the children up and ready for church, Niall and Boadicea to give thanks and feel that God was smiling upon their union.

  From then on the day just got busier for Niall’s wife, and she had little time to check on how others were feeling, though in between dinner and tea she did seek to remove the children’s impression that all she was here for was to cook for them, by suggesting that they go to watch the skaters on the frozen lake at Rowntree Park.

  ‘Maybe we’ll have a go too,’ she offered enticingly.

  Made to sit quietly with their books since dinnertime, Niall’s offspring were by now keen to escape from the house.

  ‘Hang on, there’s one of us missing.’ Counting heads, Niall saw that it was Brian. ‘Does anyone know where he is?’

  ‘He sneaked outside when you dropped off to sleep,’ informed Juggy.

  ‘I did not fall asleep!’ laughed an indignant father, knowing very well that he had.

  ‘I’ll go find the little fella,’ smiled Boadicea, ‘you kids get yourselves ready to go.’ And she bustled off to look for the youngest.

  It took no skill to detect him. As soon as she opened the front door there he was, with hangdog expression, sitting on the pavement, leaning against the wall of the house and tugging a handful of seedpods from the weed that was growing out of the dust.

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ Boadicea hugged herself, for the air was fiendishly bitter. ‘What on earth are ye doing out here in the cold with no coat, Bri?’ When he did not answer, she squatted beside him, shivering as she watched his infant fingers that were purple with cold nip open the shepherd’s purse to reveal the green ‘coins’ therein.

  ‘Go away, I don’t like you,’ he sulked, and remained intent on his task, tearing open one tiny purse after the other, then throwing them aside to litter the pavement.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ cause I like you.’ It was easy to guess the reason behind his new aversion to her. She pulled out a handkerchief and tried to wipe his running nose, but he fought her, writhing his head away.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, what you doing standing here with t’door open?’ Niall had come to investigate, his face distorted at being so cold.

  Immediately the four-year-old’s sulk turned to uncontrollable rage. ‘Why do you have to sleep with her? I want you to sleep with me!’

  Too taken aback to chastise him, Niall looked at Boadicea, each of them experiencing a wave of pity for the one w
ho missed his father’s closeness.

  But whilst Niall’s method was to say, ‘Aye, well, you’re a big lad now; big lads don’t sleep with their dads,’ his wife’s was more compassionate.

  ‘’Tis Christmas soon, Bri,’ said Boadicea gently, still squatting beside him, a coaxing hand on his shoulder as she poised with her handkerchief at the ready. ‘Father Christmas only comes to visit children’s beds, not grown-ups’. I mean, ye can swap places with me if ye really want to, but you’d miss out on all those parcels he’s bringing ye …’

  This caused Brian to be thoughtful, and to remain still enough for her to dive on his nose with the handkerchief. This time he let her wipe it. And by the time she had done so, his mood had metamorphosed, so that he ran into the house as good as gold to join in the expedition to the frozen lake.

  ‘See, that’s all it takes,’ she murmured to the child’s father. ‘A little bribery.’

  Hunched against the cold that pierced his shirtsleeves, Niall shoved her into the house before him. ‘Aye, but how’s Father Christmas going to provide all these presents?’

  ‘Ye’d better get your hammer and nails out, hadn’t ye?’ Boadicea looked smug, then murmured laughingly so that the children did not overhear, ‘I can knit stuff for the girls but I can’t knit a garage.’

  ‘That’s what he’d like, is it?’

  She nodded, and told him quietly of the one Brian had seen in a toy shop window. ‘I’m sure with your talents you can copy it.’

  So, this was what Niall found himself doing in the weeks up to Christmas, after the children had gone to bed, dragging the half-finished toys from their hiding place, to measure, to saw and to paint, Boadicea beside him knitting gifts, both of them rushing to finish the tasks in time. There was no time for the rug now, nor opportunity for any sly diversion to the pub – not that he would want to go there, for this was all he had ever dreamed of: to be in the company of the woman he loved. Had it not been for one thing, he would have been ecstatic …