Letters From a Patchwork Quilt

by Clare Flynn

  LETTERS FROM A PATCHWORK QUILT

  BY CLARE FLYNN

  CRANBROOK PRESS

  LETTERS FROM A PATCHWORK QUILT

  Copyright ©2015 Clare Flynn

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Cranbrook Press 2015

  London, UK

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

  Cover design JD Smith Designs.

  DEDICATION

  In memory of Michelle Van Vlijmen 1954-2015.

  A dear and true friend.

  Prologue

  St Louis, 2015

  It was coming apart. Hand-sewn with stitches so small as to be barely visible. Meredith took it out of the battered old trunk and stretched it out on the bed, smoothing the surface with the palm of her hand. The fabric crinkled slightly, stiff under her fingers. It was a bit grubby – pretty though. The fabric shapes were in calico and cotton, in a combination of delicate shades of blues and greens. It would look perfect in the guest bedroom. Then she remembered she wasn’t going to keep the house.

  She picked the quilt up and took it into the study, where she rummaged about on shelves and in cupboards until she found her mother’s sewing box. The quilt would have to be repaired before she could risk laundering it. She settled herself into the low armchair in front of the windows and let the autumn sunshine wash over her. Meredith couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down like this to do something for herself. To sew. To paint. To write for pleasure. The last year had been swallowed up with caring for her mother in the final phase of her illness.

  Needle threaded, she calculated how to begin the repair. The quilt was a complicated design, a sampler of several different intricate patterns. She started to fold one of the pieces under where it had buckled up, when she noticed the stiffness was caused by the paper pieces still present between the layers of fabric. If she was going to wash the quilt she’d have to remove them. She folded the flap of material back and gently eased out the piece of paper. It was quite thick, a lightweight card rather than paper and covered in neat, old-fashioned, cursive writing in black ink, the edges ragged where the needle had caught them as it penetrated the fabric. She set it on one side and carefully removed another piece until she had a small collection of hexagonal shapes laid out beside her on the table. Strange that the pieces had been left inside instead of being removed as the quilt was pieced together. She picked one up to read it and realised that it was part of a letter. She took the backing off the quilt and worked her way through the pieces, extracting each paper template one by one.

  It took her nearly an hour to fit the pieces together, straining her eyes to read the tiny florid handwriting with its loops and curlicues. Using a magnifying glass, she worked her way slowly through the text.

  1

  Escape

  Derby, England, 1875

  Jack’s eldest sister, Theresa, had burnt the porridge again. She always left it bubbling on the stove in unspoken criticism of any late risers. It was Jack’s younger sister, Cecily, who’d made him late this morning. Jack had been huddled under the blanket, putting off the inevitability of rising on a morning that had frosted the window panes so heavily the bedroom was still dark. Cecily had found his precious notebook under the mattress and read bits out in a mocking tone, until he managed to wrest it from her grip. Jack wasn’t ashamed of what he’d written. It was just that it sounded feeble when read out loud in a singsong tone by a younger sister, eager to gain some leverage in their sibling rivalry. He had nothing to bargain with, other than brute force – a brief Chinese burn usually kept her in her place, without causing lasting damage.

  ‘You’re late,’ said their father, wiping his hand across his mouth to remove the traces of porridge from his moustache. ‘What was all that thumping and banging upstairs? You been fighting again? Want me to give you both a good leathering?’

  Neither Jack nor Cecily wanted to feel the force of their father’s easily aroused anger and his tendency to solve all strife with a lash of his belt. Cecily slunk into her place at the table and Jack settled beside her and gave his attention to the glutinous porridge.

  There was an unspoken code in that Brennan household that they didn’t tittle tattle on each other, but Cecily had always struggled with it. Jack threw her a look, to warn her to say nothing.

  ‘Our Jack wants to go for the Queen’s Scholarship.’ She looked at him slyly.

  ‘Shut it,’ he mumbled. Maybe that Chinese burn had been too painful – or more likely not hard enough to dissuade her from snitching on him.

  ‘And he’s been writing poems. He’s got a little notebook he keeps stuffed under the mattress. Daft poems about nature and dreams.’

  Jack cursed his own stupidity in thinking any place in this cramped and overcrowded house would be safe from prying eyes and twitching fingers. He should have left his precious notebook in the cupboard at school.

  ‘Poems?’ His mother, Annie, spoke, wiping her hands on her apron as she paused in washing the dishes. ‘You’re writing poetry, son?’

  Jack forced the last mouthful of porridge down and got up from the table. ‘It’s for school.’ If he got a move on he could be out of the house before Cecily got into her stride. He scraped back his chair.

  ‘No it’s not schoolwork.’ Cecily’s tone was smug. She was not prepared to give ground now that the whole family was listening to her. ‘He’s written a poem about how he wants to get away from here. Like this were a prison or something. He reckons he’s too good for us.’ She paused, looking around to be sure she had everyone’s attention, then spoke in a triumphant tone. ‘Says he’s not going to be a priest. He’s going to be a teacher.’

  ‘Oh aye!’ Their father’s laugh was a deep baritone. ‘A teacher! Get you, son! Well, Mother, did you ever think we’d not only have children that can read and write but we’ve even raised one who thinks he’s good enough to teach other kids how to do it? Would you believe it?’ He shook his head and wiped a tear of laughter from his eye.

  Jack’s mother, Annie, leaned forward and stroked his head. ‘You’re going to the seminary next year. The teaching you’ll be doing is from the pulpit on a Sunday, lad. That’s much more important.’

  Jack took a deep breath. Now or never. He’d hoped to raise the subject at a time of his own choosing, but he might as well get it out of the way.

  ‘I don’t have a vocation.’

  The chattering around the table stopped. His parents exchanged a look then his mother sat down beside Jack and took his hand. ‘That’ll come, love. If you ask for God’s guidance. It will come. Say your prayers and God will help you find it.’

  ‘I don’t want to find it. I don’t want to be a priest. I want to be a teacher. That’s my vocation. That’s what I care about.’

  As soon as he spoke he wanted to suck the words back into his mouth. There was silence in the room as what he said registered. Jack gulped a deep breath and immediately felt better. He’d do
ne it. At last. Spoken up about what he wanted. Stood up to his parents. It was out now and couldn’t be taken back. He felt a surge of relief tinged with excitement.

  His father got up, knocking over his chair, then banging his fist on the table so the crockery shook.

  ‘We’ll hear no more of this nonsense. You should be thankful you’re not slaving away like me and Kenny, trying to squeeze out a living with the plastering. Not enough work for the two of us and there’s nowt else in this town in the way of jobs.’

  Jack opened his mouth to speak but his mother threw him a look.

  His father carried on. ‘Didn’t I say being a teacher’s assistant would put daft ideas in your head? – and I were right. Your mother twisted my arm, said it would help you get a fast start at the seminary. But that’s it. Enough of this bloody nonsense.'

  He thumped the table again.

  His wife laid a calming hand on his sleeve. ‘ Why don’t you have a word with our Dom and see if he can get the boy in right away, Bill?’

  ‘Good idea. The brothers’ll knock some sense into that thick head of his.’ He turned back to Jack – ‘And if you mention teaching again I’ll knock your block off.'

  Before Bill Brennan could leave the room he was overcome by a fit of coughing. A lifetime of plaster dust had played havoc with his breathing, and his eldest son, Kenneth was developing a cough too. Bill pulled a rag out of his trouser pocket and held it to his mouth, then tried to stuff it back quickly. Not quick enough for his wife.

  ‘That’s blood again, Bill, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘You’ve got to see a doctor.’

  ‘There’s no money for a doctor. You know that, duck.’

  ‘I’ll talk to our Dom.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing, woman.’ The coughing fit had placated him. He leaned over and planted a kiss on the top of her head then slung his tool bag over his shoulder and went out with Kenneth behind him.

  Annie Brennan grabbed Jack’s arm and jerked him out of his seat.

  ‘See what you’ve done now, you stupid boy. You know it makes your Da’s chest worse when he gets a strop on. I’ll have no more talk of scholarships in this house. I should never have let you talk me into you staying on as a monitor. I were tempted by the two bob a week, but if you’d gone straight to the seminary you’d be a priest by now and there’d be one less mouth to feed.’

  She sighed and released Jack from her grip. ‘You always twist me round your little finger, our Jack, but not any more. Your Da’s right. As for a Queen’s scholarship, how are we expected to pay for the books? And what would you get even if you passed? Twenty pounds a year? How would that make a difference?’

  Jack was about to protest but she cut him off. ‘No, son. This nonsense has gone on for long enough. If you talk about it again you’ll get a thick ear from me, never mind your Da.’

  She turned her back on him as she scrubbed away at the porridge pan and called over her shoulder, ‘Get off to school, you lot. You’re going to be late.’

  As soon as they were outside the house, Jack ran ahead of his sisters and brother. He didn’t want to give Cecily another opportunity to taunt him, nor did he want his other siblings asking why he didn’t want to be a priest. Joining his older brothers in the church was viewed as an economic necessity in the Brennans’ circumstances. The family plastering business could barely sustain father and eldest son and joining the priesthood provided employment, food and lodgings, as well as building the reputation of the family within the parish.

  As Jack ran through the dirty streets, he pulled his cap down to try to cover his ears and keep out the piercing cold. The piles of coal-blackened slush at the sides of the street were frozen solid. This winter was unending. Freezing fog filled his lungs and sent a sharp pain through his chest, but he kept on running. Running from the house where he felt he didn’t belong. Running to the school he saw as his haven. Running so he wouldn’t freeze to death. He rounded the corner of Inkerman Street and careened into the rag and bone man’s cart, bruising his ankle against one of the wheels. The man yelled a curse at Jack and his tired old nag managed a half-hearted whinny. It was practically dead on its feet.

  Jack ran through the school gates and past the children shivering outside the closed door; it was his job to let them in, but first he wanted to hide his notebook at the back of the cupboard where the slates and chalk were stored.

  It had been four years since Jack had turned thirteen and stayed on at the school to assist the class teacher. It was hard work, but he revelled in it. Some days he had a whole class to teach and after class finished he had another three hours to be taught himself. His own tuition took place after school in the winter months and at dawn in the summer ones. The school was cold and draughty, with only a tiny coal stove in each of the two classrooms: more often than not it was unlit; coal was an expensive luxury on all but the bitterest of days.

  Jack didn’t care about the cold. He came alive as soon as he crossed the threshold of the school. Learning was his passion. He had an insatiable hunger for knowledge, a thirst for finding out about the rest of the world. Learning took him far away from the slums of Derby into a world where words opened doors onto magical things he would never have otherwise dreamt of. And teaching was as wonderful as learning – sharing his enthusiasm and opening the eyes of the smaller children to all the possibilities beyond this miserable industrial town. It was like a drug: seeing the small boys gathered around him, their eyes wide as he read to them from Gulliver’s Travels or spun the globe and told them about faraway countries. He could never give that up to mumble Latin at a congregation most of whom were only in church out of duty, fear or habit. No, being a priest was unthinkable.

  The school morning began with the only part of teaching that Jack disliked: the catechism. The children were required to learn and recite it by rote. Jack hated the way the words turned into meaningless banalities from the mindless repetition, so that sometimes they ceased to be intelligible. Church dogma, much of which bore little or no relationship to the teachings of Christ, went straight over the heads of the children. Their little faces dropped when he tried to explain the concepts of Purgatory and Limbo. What was the point of terrifying innocent children by concepts that were beyond their experience or understanding. Secretly, Jack believed it was all a lot of nonsense – what kind of god would keep unbaptised babies out of heaven? It was hardly their fault they died before their parents managed to get them christened. He would dream of being free to teach the way he wanted to teach, inspiring the children with stories from the New Testament, instead of stuffing their heads with what he was increasingly convinced was ecclesiastical mumbo jumbo. Of course he could never breathe a word of these doubts to a living soul, or confess to this growing lack of faith in the church that was the centre point of his family and to which he was expected to devote his life.

  When the children left the classroom at the end of the afternoon, in a clatter of slates which they piled up on the teacher’s desk as they filed past, Jack decided to broach the topic of his scholarship with his teacher.

  ‘Mr Quinn, you know we spoke about me going for the Queen’s?’

  ‘I think you’re nearly ready, Jack. Don’t you? We’ll need to spend some more time on your arithmetic – that’s the weak spot. But with some application and effort you’ll sail through.’

  Jack scuffed his shoe against the edge of his chair, noticing there was a hole in the sole. He’d need to find some cardboard to line it before his mother found out. She didn’t need that to worry over on top of everything else.

  ‘My parents say I can’t sit it. They want me to go to the seminary as soon as they can get me in. They’re going to talk to our Dom. They won’t let me be a teacher.’

  ‘When you’ve got your scholarship the school board will increase your wages. That should help. If you go to college and qualify, you could be on as much as twenty-five pounds a year.’

  Jack turned away
from his mentor and looked out of the window onto the small yard where a robin was pecking about in the smoke-blackened snow. ‘It’s not just that, sir. There’s the cost of the books. And my keep in the meantime. And my Da’s not in the best of health. They can’t afford the doctor’s bills. They need me off their hands. They’ll like as not send me and our Tommy together. He’s ten next month so he’ll be leaving school anyway.’

  ‘And does Tommy want to be a priest?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s really ever thought there was anything else. With our Dom a priest and Bernie due to be ordained this summer, it’s expected.’

  Mr Quinn took a pipe out of his pocket and lit it, drawing in little sucks of air till it caught. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘And why are you so set against it, Jack? After all you’d have bed and board and plenty of free time. No wife to worry about so you can read and write your poetry to your heart’s content. And if you want to teach, you could always become a Jesuit or a Christian Brother.’

  Jack pulled a face. ‘They want me to be a parish priest. The Jesuits are far too grand for the likes of us. And besides…’ His heels scuffed at the floor again and he looked away. ‘Not having a wife to worry about. That’s the problem. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a priest.’ He could feel the blood rushing to his face and turned his eyes towards the window again.

  The teacher smiled and said ‘There’s nothing wrong with that. Jack. You’re a hot-blooded lad. I could never be celibate myself. Mrs Quinn may not be perfect but I’d not be without her, nor she me, I hope. It takes a special man to choose to devote his life to God and forgo the pleasures of married life.’

  ‘I’m not special.’

  ‘Maybe you are, lad, but in a different way. You’re a talented pupil with a gift for words, but I reckon you’re right, you’re not prime priesthood material. Perhaps I should have a word with your parents. With three sons in the church, maybe they can let one of you follow a different path.’