Nora was a bit better off now she’d left school. She was turned fourteen years old, and was helping out at Father Daly’s house during the week. The priest’s housekeeper gave her dinner there, and gave her bits to bring home to Biddy. Biddy reckoned that some of the people in Ballygrace must know what an old miser Lizzie was, because they always said – ‘Don’t tell Lizzie’ when they gave you anything. Biddy couldn’t wait until she was old enough to get away from Lizzie’s house. She was past twelve now, and in a few years she was going to get a job and eventually get a nice house of her own.
There was nobody in the cottage when Biddy got back. She brushed the floor and tidied around a bit, then she settled back, relieved and glad to have the place to herself. There was a small pot by the side of the fire, with some leftover cooked potatoes and onions in it. Biddy reckoned it must be for colcannon for Dinny’s tea. If Lizzie didn’t come in before the lodger, then Biddy would have to add milk to the mixture and mash it up on the fire. She scooped a few pieces of the cold potato out with her fingers and ate them. Then she put the sticks and turf on the dying fire to revive it, and when it was going, she put the kettle on to boil. She would make some tea for herself before Lizzie got back, and she would sit and read Tara’s American comic in front of the fire.
Ten minutes later Biddy heard the sound of whistling and a bike coming up the path. She looked out of the window that she had spent ages cleaning the day before. A smile came over her face. It was Dinny. Every evening, he dropped the lorry off at the depot in Tullamore, collected his bike and cycled back out to Ballygrace.
The lodger came in the front door of the cottage. He immediately knew by the casual, relaxed manner of Biddy that the woman of the house was not around.
“Where’s Herself?” Dinny asked, taking off his cap and running his hands through his greasy brown hair.
“Out,” said Biddy in a light-hearted tone. She could talk to Dinny any way she liked and she knew he wouldn’t give out to her. “There was nobody here when I came back from gatherin’ sticks.”
“Where’s Nora?”
Biddy shrugged. “She must still be at the priest’s house.”
Dinny rubbed his hands together. “Just yerself and meself.”
Biddy giggled. “That’s all.” She went over and poked the fire a bit. “Will I put yer dinner on now? Lizzie’s left some spuds for you . . . and I could fry you some bacon and eggs to go with it.”
“Could you now?” Dinny said, in a low, throaty voice. “Aren’t you the great little housekeeper?” He moved towards her, rolling up the sleeves of his stained working shirt.
Biddy giggled again, and threw back her lank, shoulder-length hair. “Sure, won’t I make a fine wife for somebody one day?”
“You will . . . you’ll make some man a grand wife,” Dinny said, searching for the stick of liquorice in his waistcoat pocket. He held it out to her between finger and thumb. “Well, now,” he said in a wheedling voice, “what would a man get for this?”
Biddy stretched an eager hand out. “Where did you get that, Dinny? Have you any more?”
He held the liquorice high above his head. “Hold yer horses,” he said laughing. “I don’t give these away for nothing . . . sweeties are priceless at the minute.”
Biddy jumped up and down, trying to reach his hand.
“C’mon now,” he said, stretching higher and angling his body away from her. “Surely, you can think of something to give me . . . something that could make a man feel happy?”
Biddy stopped jumping, and put a grubby finger under her chin in a coy manner. “I wonder,” said she, “what kind of a thing that would be?”
Biddy knew full well what he was looking for. Since he had come to live in the cottage, he had played around with her like this – when Lizzie wasn’t around. He had started carrying on with her shortly after he arrived, teasing and tickling her . . . and touching her in places that she had never imagined a man would want to touch her. And funnily enough, she had liked it. She had liked the attention that Dinny paid her. She didn’t always like the things he wanted her to do – but she had got used to it. And after a bit, she didn’t mind. Dinny always gave her sweeties for doing it, and that made everything all right.
Dinny lowered his arm. “Maybe a kiss?” he said in a thick voice.
The little orphan rolled her eyes to the ceiling as though considering the bargain. Then, a wide grin spread over her face. “Okay!” she agreed, throwing her arms around him. As his rough lips came crushing down on her childish mouth, Biddy felt a wave of delight. It was grand, just grand, that someone liked her enough to hug and kiss her.
Never, at any point in her young life, could she remember being held and kissed. Nobody, except Dinny the Lodger, had been kind and nice to her. Her mother – whom she never knew – must have held her once. But not for long. Within days of her birth she was taken away. The nuns in the orphanage certainly never held and kissed her. Oh, they were kind enough to her, but in a strict, religious way. Once, when she was four years old, she was out playing in the orphanage garden and she fell over and cut her knee badly. One of the younger nuns had lifted her up in her arms, and then taken her to the doctor to have it stitched. Biddy had almost cried with joy at being held in someone’s arms, and had held on so tightly when she came back to the orphanage that it had taken two other nuns to wrestle her out of the younger nun’s arms.
And then Biddy had come to live at Lizzie Lawless’s in Ballygrace. Instinctively – even as a young child – she had known not to expect any kisses and cuddles from that quarter. Lizzie was a pinched little spinster, who had a grudge against the world, and she took great delight in venting her spleen on Nora and Biddy.
From the moment Biddy had arrived in Ballygrace, their foster-mother had made her carry heavy buckets of water from the pump at the bottom of the road. She then had to heat the water in a pan over the fire, and then she had to wash the delph and pots. As she got older she had learned how to cook and wash and sew – and how to do them well – because Lizzie was very pernickety about how things were done. If they weren’t done right first time, then Lizzie reckoned a good slap was all that was needed, to ensure it was done right the second time. Nora and Biddy had been quick learners due to the slaps.
Everything had changed when Dinny arrived at the cottage last year. Everything had become brighter and lighter in Lizzie’s house, with his jocular manner and easy-going ways. He was distantly connected to the Lawless family, and when he was offered his new job in the area, the elderly spinster had suggested that he move in as a lodger. It meant that the girls had to give up their bedroom for him, and move their double bed into Lizzie’s smaller room, while she moved her settle bed into the kitchen.
“I can see all that’s going on from me bed, now,” she had warned, “and there’s no one can come in or out without me knowin’. Nobody knows what young ones would get up to these days.”
The arrangement had initially been temporary, but since both parties were happy with things, no mention had been made of Dinny looking elsewhere. Lizzie had been particularly happy with the dig money that the lodger tipped up every Friday night. It was another source of income to add to the money she was paid for rearing the girls. Another bit to add to the growing nest-egg that Lizzie had locked in a small wooden chest in her wardrobe drawer.
One of Dinny’s hands slowly moved Biddy’s hand to the hard ridge in the front of his rough working trousers, and the other moved to the garter at the top of her woollen stocking.
Biddy gave a loud, snorting giggle, pulled her hand away from him and shook her thin, lanky brown hair. “The liquorice,” she said in a teasing voice, which she knew he liked. “No sport until I get the stick of liquorice!”
Dinny lowered his dark head and pulled her hand back to caress him. “Give my mickey a bit of a rub,” he murmured, “and then you’ll get the sweetie . . . I’ve got more than the one sweetie for you, if you do it the way I showed you last time.”
Biddy giggled again, delighted with his pleading manner. She couldn’t believe how stupid a grown man could be. What could he possibly like about her touching him there? Up until a few weeks ago, he’d been content with just tickling and kissing her, but then this ‘rubbing his mickey’ business had started. It just seemed stupid and silly to Biddy, she couldn’t see what Dinny liked about it at all. She couldn’t understand why he would close his eyes, and make all those groaning noises as if she was hurting him.
Last time, in the turf shed, he had tried to make her put her hand down the front of his trousers. Biddy had laughed and wriggled away from him. She’d told him that she’d only do it if she got a fancy china doll like the one that Tara had. Dinny had sighed and said that when she was grown up, he would buy her lots of nice things, but at the minute he couldn’t, because Lizzie would wonder where it came from.
As her hand moved up and down the bulge in his trousers, a thought suddenly came into Biddy’s mind. “What if Lizzie or Nora come in?” The laughter drained from her voice. “We’d be in a lot of trouble then.”
“They won’t come in,” Dinny said, in the funny, husky voice he always used when she touched him. “And we can stop if they do.” He looked anxiously towards the door. “We could go out into the turf shed . . . we would hear anybody before they came in on top of us.” He pressed her little hand harder against his body and closed his eyes again.
Then, a crunching of footsteps sounded on the path outside, heralding the arrival of Lizzie and Nora.
“Aw . . . feck it!” the lodger muttered, giving a deep, noisy sigh. He quickly moved away from Biddy, and readjusted the front of his trousers.
“What about me liquorice?” Biddy whispered urgently.
“I’ll give it to you later – out in the turf shed,” Dinny said. Then, leaving a disappointed Biddy to greet the other two, he disappeared into his bedroom.
Chapter Five
William Fitzgerald lived a lie. He was regarded as the most prosperous and respectable member of Ballygrace parish. And indeed, this was exactly how he intended to present himself, when he moved from Blackrock – a small town on the south-east coast of Dublin – to County Offaly in the Midlands.
Exactly why he had moved with his family to Ballygrace House – a large rambling residence outside the village – none of the locals really knew. And it certainly wasn’t for the want of enquiring. Not that they would have dared ask William Fitzgerald directly, for they could tell he was not a man to be approached with personal questions. Nor would they approach his stand-offish, pale-skinned, uppity wife.
There were ways and means of acquiring information in Ballygrace, some subtle and some not so subtle. The teachers in school made it their business to enquire, in a roundabout way, through the children. Others approached the two local women and the gardener who worked at the house, hoping for some nugget of information with which they could entertain their neighbours over the fence, or at night around the fire.
They were all given the same answer. The Fitzgeralds had moved to Ballygrace because Elisha Fitzgerald’s delicate health was more suited to the country than the city, and because of William Fitzgerald’s business interests. No other explanations were forthcoming.
Had the good people of Ballygrace known that William Fitzgerald had left Blackrock under a cloud, their tongues would have had something to wag about. And had they known that he had owned several residences in Blackrock equal in size to Ballygrace House – and lost it all through drink and gambling – their tongues would have wagged all the harder.
But they didn’t know, and William Fitzgerald would do his damnedest to make sure that they never found out. His good reputation meant everything to him. It meant his wife – who had put almost every penny of her family inheritance into financing the move to Offaly – would remain as his wife. It meant that his son, Gabriel, and his daughter, Madeleine – who knew nothing of their father’s misdemeanours – could go about Tullamore with heads held high, as would befit a family living in Ballygrace House. Living in such a rural environment – far away from Blackrock – meant there was no likelihood of them being informed of the family’s fallen fortunes.
The ambiguity of his children’s schooling, however, was not lost on William Fitzgerald. It was the sorest point between him and Elisha, that they had to attend the Ballygrace National School. There were two reasons for this – finance and location.
To send the children to the nearest, suitable school would have been a huge drain on their rather depleted finances. It would also have taken too long to travel to Tullamore in a pony and trap, especially in the winter.
Elisha had put her daintily clad foot down firmly on the matter. She would not have the children travelling three miles in the dark to school in the morning and then three miles back home again in the dark. The children would attend Ballygrace National School, which – depending on their father’s future fortunes – they could walk to, if the need arose.
“We have already learned one hard lesson,” Elisha Fitzgerald pointed out, “and I have no wish to go through that uncertainty again. From now on, until your new business ventures start showing a reasonable profit, we shall cut our coats according to our cloth. Ballygrace School will serve our purposes quite well, without incurring any unnecessary expense.” She gave a little smile, which she knew would infuriate her husband. “I’m sure we can quite comfortably afford the load of turf that the school requires each pupil to bring every term.”
The mention of the word ‘turf’ was enough to bring a curl to William Fitzgerald’s moustache-covered lip. The fact that Ballygrace village was largely built on a bog had escaped his notice in the family’s hurry to buy and move into the house.
“There is no point in comparing things down here with Dublin standards,” Elisha had scolded her husband. “Our life in Dublin society is finished. We have to start afresh here, mixing with the people around us, and living according to those standards. Ballygrace may not be the sophisticated place we have been used to, but we have a fine Georgian house and several acres of grounds. We can bring them both back to their former beauty with a bit of hard work. Surely,” she said, “it should be a balm to your wounded pride that the local people here hold us in the high esteem we were held in Blackrock?”
“What about the children Gabriel and Madeleine will have to mix with in this local school?” William had snorted. “They may pick up the habits and manners of the local peasants.”
“They will maintain the same standards at home, and that is the most important place for them. Besides, there are children whose fathers have substantial farms in the area attending the school, and several shopkeepers. The head teacher informed me when I enrolled them.”
“He probably only said that to impress you,” William argued. “As far as I can see, there are few wealthy farmers or shopkeepers in this area. If there is any money, then it doesn’t show in their outward appearance. If you ask me, all their money must be in trunks under the bed, because they don’t appear to spend it on clothing or transport.”
“Outward trappings do not always tell the truth,” Elisha had answered pointedly. “And thank God for it – or we might find ourselves the subject of considerable gossip!”
Odd whispers about William’s misdemeanours had reached Tullamore over the years since the Fitzgeralds had arrived, but nothing had actually been verified. The children had settled in and flourished in their country environment, as had Elisha’s health.
After a shaky start, William had thrown himself into his auctioneer’s business and the adjoining undertaker’s business which he had also purchased. He also bought up several old buildings in Tullamore and the surrounding district. He hired local workers at much lower rates than he would have paid in the city to renovate and restore them, and then sell them to businesses for a decent profit.
The property business was much smaller and slower in Offaly, and William found that he was dealing more with buying and selling of land around the Midlands and K
ildare, rather than buildings. There was only the odd house for sale when people decided to up sticks and move to England or America.
But things were not all bad, and William was surprised to learn that a good profit came from the undertaker’s office, where business was always brisk. He took nothing to do with the actual running of it himself, as he found that side of things rather distasteful. He carefully averted his eyes from the coffins any time he entered the room behind the office. He had two men working for him who managed all the undertaking work from the start to the finish of the funerals. And according to the local people and the accounts books – a good job they made of it, too.
As a result of his hard work and employing local people, William found that his reputation had gradually built up in his adopted County Offaly, and before long, he was being asked to join the various clubs and committees in Tullamore. It may not have been anywhere near the same exciting standards as Dublin, but where had that got the Fitzgerald family?
This all went some way to restoring Elisha’s faith in her husband, but deep down they both knew that she would never fully trust him again. As far as she was concerned, William had kept his promise about never gambling, and he now drank only on social occasions, mostly accompanied by his wife.
Having arrived in Ballygrace at such a young age, the golden-haired Madeleine and Gabriel had settled down to country life as though born into it. When William’s business ventures started to pay off, he invested more and more money into Ballygrace House to restore it to its former glory, and the children benefited from this when the decrepit stables were rebuilt.
Tara Flynn Page 5
