by Laura Elliot
Sara’s tears dried as her mother comforted her, speaking soft, insistent words of hate. She brought the girls into her bedroom where they slept for the rest of the night. The door on one side of the wardrobe was open. The space inside was empty except for a few coat hangers. Empty space was all her father had left behind.
Soon the empty spaces were filled with other things. He became a memory that only took shape when the girls heard ceili music on the radio or found an old photograph that had escaped Marjory’s ruthless efforts to remove his presence from the house. Once a week he sent a registered letter from Dublin. It contained money, she said. Money that would be sufficient to manage on if she were feeding a family of mice. The girls should thank their lucky stars they had an uncle who cared about their welfare or they would be sleeping on the streets.
Occasionally, Barry sent letters to his daughters. He lived near a church on a hill. Christ Church Cathedral, a very old and famous place, he wrote. The cobblestones would make a man’s bones rattle. The smell of hops and yeast from the Guinness brewery was as sweet as the nectar of the gods. He missed his girls every ticking minute on the clock. They must visit him one of these fine days.
Chapter 5
‘Beth Tyrell – thirteen years of age. Well, fancy that now!’ In Hearn’s grocery shop, Maggie Hearn’s eyes beamed behind her glasses. She leaned her elbows on the counter. ‘It only seems like yesterday your mammy was wheeling you out in your big fancy pram.’
Behind her, high wooden shelves stretched to the ceiling, stacked with everything from fishing tackle to flypaper, sides of smoked bacon, bags of sugar and golden mounds of butter that Maggie sliced and wrapped in greaseproof paper.
‘So? What’s the plan for the big day?’ she asked. ‘I’ve heard terrible stories about them teenage parties.’
‘I’m not having a party,’ said Beth. ‘Me and Sara are going to visit Daddy in Dublin.’
‘Are you now? Tell the old rogue I was asking for him. Many’s a tune I danced to his accordion.’
Beth almost laughed out loud at the idea of Maggie Hearn dancing in her wrap-around apron and cardigan, the rainbow-coloured lights twirling on her bottle-top glasses. When she was leaving, Maggie gave her a packet of Rolos to celebrate her birthday. ‘You’ll be running from them boyos before much longer,’ she said, chuckling. ‘Take Maggie’s advice and make sure you pick the right one before you let him catch you.’
On the morning of their departure Sara woke, sulky and hot. She puckered her forehead and refused to get out of bed.
‘I don’t want to see him… You can’t make me,’ she cried, twisting the sheet around her neck and turning her back on Beth. ‘He’s a horrible, cruel man. Mammy says he hates me. And you’re horrible too… A big bully… I’m not going and that’s that.’
She sobbed and cowered under the blankets.
‘Poor baby. What’s the matter? Let Mammy make you better,’ Marjory crooned and Beth knew her sister would stay in bed all day, eating ice cream and drinking lemonade, even though she was only pretending to be sick.
‘Make sure you behave yourself,’ Marjory warned when Beth was ready to leave. ‘There are very few girls in Anaskeagh who will ever have the opportunity of staying overnight in an expensive hotel, isn’t that right, Albert?’
‘It is indeed.’ Beth’s uncle smiled at her. ‘But then there’s very few girls in Anaskeagh as beautiful as my Beth. And it’s not every day that one of them gets to be a teenager.’
Barry Tyrell had grown a beard, and his face was fatter, not flushed and tense any more. At first he seemed like a stranger with her father’s voice and the familiar way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. Her uncle did not stay and talk to him. He had people to meet in the city and would call back later for Beth.
‘Well, well, well! This is good, isn’t it?’ Barry rubbed his hands together. He made sandwiches and cut slices of sponge cake, insisting that Beth eat every crumb on her plate. The house where he lived was on a terrace similar to Fatima Parade but he only had one room and a sofa bed. The lace curtains had holes and blue mould stains. Dead leaves were trapped under the weatherboard. He wanted to know about school and if Beth had a boyfriend yet. On the mantelpiece a black china horse reared up on its hind legs. A gas fire steamed the windows. He told her about his job, delivering planks of wood to building sites, and how at night he played in pubs. Not dance music any more but whistle tunes with a ballad group called Celtic Reign who, he said, were going places very fast.
‘How much do you miss me?’ Beth demanded.
‘You pull my heart to pieces every single day,’ he replied.
‘Then why can’t I live here with you?’
‘Don’t be daft, Beth.’ He glanced quickly at his watch, pretending he was pushing up the sleeve of his jumper. ‘You don’t want to live in a slum like this.’
‘I don’t care. I’ll be with you. I can get a job and we’ll move somewhere bigger.’
‘You’re still only a child.’
‘I’m thirteen now.’
‘That’s still far too young to leave home. Your mother would have my guts for garters.’
‘I don’t care… I hate living with her. I hate – I hate…’ She sobbed, unable to continue.
At the side of the sofa squashed against the wall she saw a cardigan. A woman’s cardigan, pale yellow angora with pearl buttons. Maybe, said Barry, his eyes skittering away from the cardigan when Beth pulled it free, when she was older, they would talk about it again.
He would never change his mind and even when he offered to teach her to play the tin whistle she knew he was watching the time, waiting for her uncle to collect her.
‘Still chasing rainbows, Mr Music Man?’ Albert asked when he returned.
How tall he seemed, standing strong in the little room, rain glistening on his oiled hair, which he’d combed back so neatly from his forehead. Her father’s hair was a mess, long on the back of his neck and as frizzy as his beard.
‘Get your coat, Beth.’ Barry nodded brusquely towards the door, his good humour disappearing. In the hall she heard him tell her uncle that what he chased was his own business.
‘Ah, but it’s also my concern, Tyrell. Rainbows don’t help when it comes to feeding your children. That pittance you send to Marjory every week is a joke.’
‘It’s as much as I can afford. She makes enough from the dressmaking to manage.’
‘If you believe that you’re more of a fool than I thought. She’s gone to skin and bone with the work she’s forced to take on to keep her family together. My sister was always too good for you but you married her and it was your duty to take care of her.’
‘So what’s the penance, Father? Three Hail Marys and a hair shirt… With slight alternations?’ He raised his voice. ‘Are you ready, Beth? Don’t keep your uncle waiting. He’s a very busy man.’
Beth wondered how it was possible to love and hate her father at the same time. Such mixed feelings confused her, so different to her feelings for the man standing beside her. Those feelings oozed from some slimy part of her stomach, knotting it so hard it was impossible to think of anything else. He stopped at the hall door and studied his reflection in a grimy mirror, flicked a dark hair from his shoulder and lifted the collar of his coat around his ears. He took Beth’s hand and held it against his side, pulling her forward when she turned to wave to her father. Surely he would change his mind and call her back. Was she the only person in the world to see the monster’s face? The front door was closed by the time her uncle turned his car and drove away.
The button beside the hotel lift glowed orange when he pressed it. Far below she heard a low murmur, as if a mighty beast had been disturbed and was coming to carry her away. It grew louder, shuddering movements that stopped when it reached their feet. The gates clanged when he pushed them apart. Her stomach swooped in a ticklish thrill as the lift began to ascend.
Their footsteps were silent on the corridor leading to her room. Outside, buses were
still running. She could hear them braking, the engines idling as late-night passengers crowded the platforms, hurrying to a place where they could shelter and be safe.
Speed bonnie boat… She closed her eyes and thought about the ocean. Such a tiny boat to be tossed about on the turbulent waves and how the wind screamed… Unlike Beth, who never made a sound, and even after he left, closing her door so softly she didn’t even hear a click, she kept her eyes closed until the boat was safely brought to shore.
In the next room she heard him clearing his throat. Such thin walls between them, no stronger than a sheet of paper. After a while a snoring sound rose and fell away in a whistling sigh, as if he was blowing air through his nose and she, behind the thin walls, was comatose… The same as the Statues game. What would he do if she lived for the rest of her life in a death-like trance? Or if she died? She imagined her family weeping around her grave as her white coffin was lowered deep into the earth. Inside, she would be pale and dead. As still as she was now. Only she would be at peace and her father would be there with the mourners, ashamed of himself because he would not let her live in his mean little room with the grimy wallpaper and the yellow woman’s cardigan stuck between the sofa and the wall.
She swayed when she sat up, afraid she was going to fall from the bed. She stayed in that position, her head bent forward, until it felt safe to move again. She would tell her father. The decision came suddenly, as if it had been waiting to find space in her fear. Slowly she curled her toes, bending the soles of her feet, tensing her legs. She searched for the light switch and gathered her scattered clothes, dressing silently, terrified the snoring sounds from next door would cease.
Along the hotel corridor fan-shaped lights threw a dim glow against the walls. She pressed the lift button, seeing it light up, hearing the murmuring noise from down below rushing towards her.
‘What in God’s name are you doing, Beth?’ His red dressing gown gaped open, reaching only to his knees, showing off his hairy chest as he hurried towards her. It made him look silly, no longer important, but as he reached her the horror pushed up into her mouth and she was terrified she would throw up on the spot.
‘I’m going to my daddy,’ she cried. ‘I’m going to tell on you.’
‘Poor child, you’ve had a bad dream. Come back inside now and stop making such a fuss.’ As the lift clattered to a halt he lifted her in his arms. Easily, as if she was only the weight of a feather, he carried her back to her bedroom. He sat her on the bed and wagged his finger in her face. ‘Now! You stop this hysterical nonsense at once. Do you hear me?’
He told her about her father and the woman who owned the cardigan. How she had a family, children who had become his children. Barry Tyrell no longer cared about the girls he had left behind in Anaskeagh. When Beth put her hands over her ears he pulled them away. She must listen to the truth. Then, perhaps, she would stop being a selfish, ungrateful child who was breaking her mother’s heart with her tantrums.
In the Church of the Sacred Heart Beth stared at the crucifix above the altar. She felt the nails being thudded into the Christ figure one by one. She examined her own hands, hoping to see blood pouring forth. A stigmata. A whore of Babylon, old Sam Burns shouted at young women when they walked through the town. The words seared her mind, even though Jess’s mother said Sam was shell-shocked from the war, when he’d been a soldier in France, and harmless behind all his ranting.
On Jess’s thirteenth birthday, they climbed to the summit of Anaskeagh Head. Jess liked rituals, solemnity, the grand gesture and, on this significant occasion, she intended burying the symbols of her childhood. In a tin biscuit box she had placed her diaries, a copy book, her favourite glass necklace, a rag doll, her First Communion prayer book, her confirmation medal, a Bunty annual and her favourite sweets. The headland, with the crashing Atlantic Ocean on one side and the town of Anaskeagh sloping away into the distance on the other, offered her the perfect ceremonial altar to move into adulthood.
When the burial was over, the friends pricked the middle fingers of their right hands with a needle. They vowed to be blood sisters for as long as they lived, sharing secrets, even the smallest, most trivial secret. This meant never lying to each other, said Jess, telling Beth she sometimes heard God’s voice talking to her in the wind.
How could she share her secrets with Jess, signed in blood? How could she whisper such ugly words to her best friend, a Child of Mary who made an altar in her bedroom every May with lilac and bluebells and heard God’s voice in the wind? Far below her she could see Cherry Vale and the houses beside it. How tiny they looked. So neat and orderly, the front road winding like a skein of fine grey thread into Anaskeagh. She imagined her uncle, a scurrying insect, small enough to be crushed under her foot, the sole of her shoe stamping him into a smear of blood that would be washed away forever when the rain fell.
Chapter 6
Everything was simple once Beth decided to run away. No rush, no panic. The right moment would present itself and she would be gone, dust on her heels, churning up the road from Anaskeagh. She knew she must do it or else go mad, as loopy as old Sam Burns or Mrs McIntyre, who once ran down Fatima Parade in her nightdress waving a carving knife.
One Sunday afternoon on Anaskeagh Strand she confided her plan to Jess. ‘I can’t stick it a moment longer,’ she said. ‘I’ll go nuts if I don’t escape from this dump.’
‘Did you have another row with your mother?’ Jess asked. The rows between mother and daughter were a source of fascination to her.
‘Does the Pope say the rosary?’
‘What was it about this time?’
‘Oh, the usual.’ Beth was dismissive. ‘She wants me to do a secretarial course after my Inter and work for my uncle.’
‘I’d hate to work in an office.’
‘Well, there’s not much danger of that, is there?’
‘Thank God!’
‘You’ll have plenty of time to do that.’ Beth still couldn’t believe her friend was serious about entering a convent. At the spring retreat, Father Ford, the mission priest who was home on holiday from Africa, had talked to the pupils of the Star of the Sea Convent about the joy of becoming a beloved bride of Christ. Jess had absorbed every word. Afterwards, her face glowing with conviction, she said she finally understood The Voice. An insistent voice, no longer blowing uncertainly through the wind as it told her that the way to salvation lay in loving God above all earthly things.
‘Even Wham!?’ Beth demanded.
Jess grinned. ‘Especially Wham!’
If Jess was a ‘holy Mary’ like Breda Gilligan, who had a crush on Sister Clare and wore a Miraculous Medal pinned to the front of her school blazer, Beth could have understood. But Jess adored Michael Jackson, hated The Sound of Music and had shown The Joy of Sex, which she’d found at the back of her parents’ wardrobe, to Beth ― but only after she’d read it twice.
‘It’s so sexy, isn’t it?’ Giggling, she demanded her friend’s opinion.
Beth gave a wooden smile and nodded. It seemed childish to admit that she had found it disgusting, so sickening that she wanted to throw up all over the pages. The future they had planned together seemed childish now. Jobs as fashion models or air hostesses, all-night parties and strange men with beards and guitars sleeping on the floor of their flat. Only when she finally accepted that Jess was serious about her vocation did Beth realise how much she had depended on the escape route provided by such daydreams.
‘What will you do in Dublin?’ Jess asked.
‘I’ll get a flat and a job.’
‘It’s a big city.’
‘I’ll find my way around easily enough. I’ll stay with my father until I get my own place.’
‘What about – you know – The Cardigan?’
‘What about her? He’s my father. I come first.’
Jess glanced sideways at her. ‘Are you going to tell Sara?’
‘I don’t know. If I do she’ll kick up an awful fuss.’
> ‘She’ll go nuts if she finds out afterwards.’
‘Why should she? It’s different for her. She gets away with bloody murder.’
‘I don’t know what I’ll do when you go.’ Jess put her arm around her friend’s shoulders.
‘Talk to God. He’ll tell you.’ Beth was brusque, shrugging away her friend’s arm because Jess cried easily and the last thing she needed was to dent the armour she had built around herself.
Jess was struck by a sudden thought. ‘Do you think your mother’s going through the change? My mother says women get awfully crotchety at that time.’
‘Change! What change?’ demanded Beth. ‘She’s always been the same. Anyway, she’s too young.’
‘It can happen at any age from thirty-five,’ said Jess. ‘Mammy’s got a book about it. Madness and depression and hot flushes. Remember Mrs McIntyre?’
‘Jesus!’ Beth was horrified. ‘I hope I die first.’
Hatty Beckett, who owned Hatty’s Chipper on the corner of River Mall, needed someone to work from six to midnight, five evenings a week. Marjory was furious when she heard that Beth had accepted the job. Hatty had gone out with Barry Tyrell in his single days and Marjory had often accused him of going into her chip shop for more than a portion of chips.
‘I’m not having my daughter serving every drunk in Anaskeagh,’ she declared. ‘If you insist on doing part-time work instead of studying for your Inter your uncle will be more than happy to let you work on Saturdays in his showrooms. It’ll be good training for you. He’s kind enough to pay for your education so the least you can do is show him some appreciation.’
‘I wouldn’t work for that creep if he paid me a million pounds.’ Beth’s voice was low and taunting.
‘How dare you use that kind of language in my house.’ Marjory flushed angrily. ‘Apologise at once!’
