“Oh, no you don’t.” She plunks the sausage and bread on the table along with a pot of tea, then sits purposefully down across from them. “Look, we’re all adults. I just want to know about my own mother, and the two of you need to fill me in because I can never get a darn thing out of her.”
Callum inclines his head and nods, but first he turns to Joe. “I’m sorry, Joey. The last thing I wants is to argue with you this night. Can we let it go?”
Joe’s weathered hand pats his brother’s even older one. “Indeed we should.”
“As for you, Miss Annie,” says her grandfather, “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you about your own parents. Not that there’s any great secret, but I knows how you and your mother are. Still, I figured you’d know some of this stuff by now.”
“Beth and Sara probably do, but me and Mom, we never did talk much.” She can hear the regret in her voice.
Callum touches her cheek briefly, then he begins. “Lucinda met Dermot when she was just sixteen. He was much older than her, a big strapping fisherman ten years on the boats. But Lucinda wasn’t your typical teenager. She never had lost that shyness, or sadness, or whatever it was that she brought home with her from the States.” He pauses. “Joe, you remember what Judith was like, right?”
“I do. I could never figure how you ended up with her, the rich boss’s daughter.”
“How did it happen, Granddad? You hardly ever talk about her.”
“With good reason.” Callum thinks for a minute. “One day I had to go to the main office, her father’s office. I was nervous, he being the owner of the company and all. I was standing there getting up the nerve to knock when the door swings open and there she is, the most beautiful woman I ever saw, brown curls all around her face. It was her eyes that got me, though, so blue you could only think of the sky. And that day her eyes were all fired up. She was saying something, not really shouting but in this angry voice, I don’t recall what it was about but when she saw me she stopped. I remember her looking me up and down. And then she smiled at me, a big wide smile that softened her face and made it glow. That smile was it for me. Then, when I come out from seeing her father, she was waiting for me.”
“Did you ask her out?” Annie says.
“I honestly don’t remember.” Callum looks mystified.
“There’s lots I don’t remember from them months. I just recall being bowled over, and trying hard to be the man Judith wanted me to be. I didn’t have much experience with girls.”
Joe laughs. “I never in my life saw a fellow so shy with the women.”
“Sure I never thought I’d have a girlfriend, let alone a wife.”
“Some wife.” Joe is no longer laughing. “Nothing but a mean, spoiled brat.”
“Uncle Joe!”
Callum pats her hand. “He’s right. Judith was spoiled like no one I ever knew, the apple of her father’s eye. She had a sister but poor Ruth was as homely and dull as the day was long. Never married, never had a date as far as I knew. She idolized Judith, who could do no wrong as far as Ruth was concerned. Same went for their mother. So, when Judith fell for the help at her father’s plant - that would be me - well, Judith always got what Judith wanted, and did what she wanted, no matter how mad her father was at her. I got caught hook, line and sinker. But it was just me, so no harm done.”
He takes several sips of tea, slowly, as if judging his words.
“When Lucinda came along, Judith had a new purpose, and her and her sister took it upon themselves to mould that little girl into a New York City princess.” His old eyes glisten. “Poor Lucinda. She tried to be what they wanted. She did everything they asked her to do, though it was clear from day one that it wasn’t in her nature. They just barrelled on, ignoring what she was really like.” An angry glint flashes across his eyes. “And where was I in all this? Well, the truth is, I’ve no excuse good enough. Judith’s father always begrudged me taking his daughter and he wasn’t about to have no Newfie son-in-law hanging about without earning his keep. That man worked me to the bone, he did, all so I could legitimately pay for the life his daughter was used to. No freebies there, I tell you.
“So Lucinda had to make do as best she could, without me around to interfere or help her. And she did, and she survived. It wasn’t until later that I wondered what she gave up to keep the peace.” His mouth tightens and his fist taps the table.
Annie resists the urge to comfort him. She knows he’s not finished.
He exhales slowly. “After we moved here, I wondered if she felt cast off from the Macleans, but she never said nothing. Her Aunt Ruth phoned every year, on the date Judith passed away. She always called at our house, even after Lucinda was married and had a house of her own. Merce would take the phone while I ran and fetched Lucinda. I used to wonder what they talked about but Lucinda never said. Neither did Merce. Ruth died of a heart attack last year. We haven’t heard from any of them since.
“Anyhow, Lucinda soldiered on. But my Lord, she was so thin and shy and quiet. She’d make your heart ache to look at her sometimes. When Dermot started calling on her, Merce and me were worried that he was so much older than her. But it was the darnedest thing. It struck the both of us in no time flat, and the two of them even earlier I suppose, that this was a match made in heaven. I’m ashamed to say I think it was the first time your mother felt really safe in her whole life.” He gives a wry chuckle. “I thought Sadie was going to kill her, mind you. She figured Derm was hers, you see, they’d been going around together a bit. But he was never serious about Sadie.
And when Lucinda got in the family way, eighteen or so she was, it didn’t matter. Not even back then. It just seemed right natural and they got married. Merce gave them the land this house is on, not next to her place but not too far. Derm and me started building on it right away. It was the only other house on the road back then.”
Callum’s hands rub across his face briefly before falling to the table. “But the baby died.”
Annie leans forward; his voice, normally strong despite his age, has gone hoarse.
“And the next one did too, and then she had a miscarriage really late. Me and Merce and Derm, we were some worried about her. That was a long hard haul for Lucinda. But it was Dermot got her through, kept her going. He wouldn’t let her despair. Finally, along came Beth. Lucinda latched onto that child like her life depended on it, which it probably did. She was the happiest wife and mother, and she looked so healthy, finally had a bit of meat on her bones. I was scared to death something would happen to mess it up. But it was fine, especially with Sarah and yourself coming soon after, healthy as horses. Of course there was other tough times, other babies that never made it. And when Beth lost her first one some years back, Lucinda was awful sad. But like always, she had Derm and they had each other.” Callum sits back. “I thank God to this day that Dermot Bryne came into her life.”
They sit, the three of them, quietly, at peace with each other. The house hums with the shutdown noises of late night, the muted din of the furnace winding down, the stillness outside, the sighs of old men.
In the tranquility of the kitchen, Annie thinks about her parents, about the deep bond they share. She thinks about her mother and the babies she lost, about how she has kept her sorrow close so many years. Lucinda was never the type to revisit the hardships that life dealt her, nor was she a martyr determined to hoard her pain. Rather, she always said she saw no reason to dwell on hard times, that it made no sense to be making people sad for no good reason. Still, Annie knows her mother would have given anything to spare her daughters the grief that she has known.
For the first time, Annie feels a deep connection with Lucinda, even with Mercedes, a connection that surpasses blood ties yet exists solely because of them. She does not mind that it is probably loneliness that binds them. It makes her feel less alone.
“Annie, Annie!” Pat yells from the other room. “Get in here. Hurry!”
Annie rushes to the parlour,
Joe and Callum right behind. The door is shut. When she tries to pull it open, she meets resistance. She pulls harder. It opens.
Annie stops. “For the love of God!”
The coffin is now in the middle of the room. Inside it, Mercedes is propped up with pillows. Her hand, which is tied to a rope attached to the doorknob, has risen with the opening of the door and is reaching out towards them.
Pat and Aiden stand by the coffin, swaying slightly, their faces proud, expectant.
“You’re pissed to the gills, the pair of you.” She doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “This is really gross. I hope you know that, you big idiots.”
Joe, not completely sober himself, peers nervously at Mercedes. Callum stands quietly by. He is not smiling.
Annie unties the rope from the doorknob then goes to the coffin and removes it from Mercedes’ hand. The cold sallow skin sends shivers down her arms. She pushes the rope at Aiden. “Get rid of this right now.” She sniffs. The air reeks of incense and scotch. “What the hell did you do?”
Pat leans over the coffin. “Aid spilled it. I told him not to put it there.”
“St. Peter won’t let her past the gate with that stench on her,” Aiden stammers. His speech is slow, some words delayed.
Pat drapes his arm over his brother’s shoulder. “You trying to preserve her?”
Holding onto the coffin’s railing for support they start to giggle, which soon erupts into hoots of laughter. Annie tries to quiet them but they’re too drunk to care, or to notice the sound of footsteps running down the stairs. She grabs the rope from Aiden’s hand and shoves it behind the couch.
Lucinda barges in, her flannel housecoat wafting around her. “Enough!” she yells, charging across the room.
Pat and Aiden immediately go silent.
Lucinda stops by the side of the coffin. Her mouth tightens when she sees the upended bottle lying next to Mercedes. She picks it up by the neck and holds it out towards Pat and Aiden as if she might hit them with it. They both take a step back.
“Have you no respect at all?” she says. “Do you even know the meaning of the word?”
The boys say nothing. They lean in closer to each other.
Lucinda nods. “Right. I didn’t think so. Now look at this ungodly mess. Disgusting it is, absolutely disgusting.”
Pat tries to stammer out an apology but she thrusts her hand up. “I don’t want your sorrys and your excuses. Just clean this up and quit acting like children for once in your frigging lives.” Hands on hips, she hones in on Pat. “I’m beginning to think she was right about you. All you had to do was sit up with her on her final night. But no, that was too much to ask. Well, the fun is over for you this night, do you hear me, Patrick Hann?” Not waiting for an answer she shifts her gaze to Aiden. “And you! It’s high time you learned to take some responsibility, and not just about this. If you had one lick of decency—” She stops, bunching her lips together in frustration. “Ah, what’s the use of talking to you? Just get your arse in gear and fix this, the both of you. I better not smell one whiff of that in the morning. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Aunt Luce,” they answer in unison.
“I’m going back to bed. And I don’t want to hear another peep out of you two.”
The room is silent until they hear the hard clack of Lucinda’s bedroom door.
“Which one of you wants to bathe her?” Annie asks with a perfectly straight face.
Pat pulls back. “Jesus, Annie, you’re creeping the daylights out of me.”
“She’s just kidding.” Aiden looks cautiously at Annie.
She gestures pointedly to the stained satin lining.
Pat’s face is an odd shade of green. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
For his sake only, she decides to let them off the hook. “Ah, relax. It’s not all that bad. From the looks of you two, you must have drank most of it first.”
Joe moves closer to inspect the damage. “What were you doing anyway?”
Aiden starts to titter. “We were giving her a little drinkie-pooh, but she wasn’t too interested.”
“Not like she ever drank much,” Pat adds.
“Might have cheered her up a bit,” says Annie, although not with the same degree of bitterness she usually reserves for Mercedes.
The others nod. Except Callum, who turns to go back to the kitchen.
Annie sets Joe and the boys to work, then follows her grandfather out. He is slumped in a chair, his solemn face lost in thought, his gaze far away. She thinks again of Bay D’Esprits. It was the one place she felt she could never reach him. No matter how hard she looked upon that water, at the lonely cliffs on the other side and the hard jutting rocks rising from the Atlantic, she knew that she would never see what he did.
Annie hugs his rounded shoulders and brushes back his limp grey hair. “Sorry, Granddad. Sometimes I don’t know when to shut up.”
“Oh love, I know she was a trial to put up with all these years. Mercedes long ago gave up trying to please anybody. She wasn’t one for making friends.”
Annie sits next to him at the table. “I’ve been around her since the day I was born, but the woman I knew was nothing like the person you keep talking about.”
He gives her a mischievous smile, bringing a youthful happiness to his face. “Like I said since you were little, you always put me in mind of Mercie as a girl.”
“That’s the second time today somebody said I was like her.”
“Your mother thought you were like her too, though I think it gave her more worry than pleasure,” he adds ruefully. “Guess who else saw it? Mercie. Every time you’d bring home top marks, she’d brag on about it, glowing with pride. Remember how you got straight A’s your first semester of university?”
She nods, surprised that he does.
“When Mercie heard about that, she went on and on about how she knew you could do it, knew you could beat anybody in your class. Then she said outright that you reminded her of herself, but she was thankful you had better opportunities.”
“I don’t get it. Why didn’t she ever tell me those things? She acted like she couldn’t stand me most of the time.”
“Couldn’t stand you? Annie, she loved you. She only ever wanted for you to make something of yourself because she knew you could.”
“Well, she was no help. Wouldn’t even lend me a few measly bucks for school.”
Callum looks smug. “She made sure you got the money, though.”
“She did not.”
“Whose idea was it for you to help me out at the computer, and who do you think insisted on giving me the money to pay you for it?”
Annie leans in, elbows on the table. “You’re kidding?”
“She made sure you got what you needed, and it wasn’t a loan.”
“If she really cared, what could be so wrong with telling a person?” She notices the tremble in her voice, but she doesn’t mind it, not now, not here with her grandfather.
“Oh Annie, she forgot how, is all. She said it felt like every time she tried to help she made things worse. Merce was always so nervous for you, afraid something awful would happen and you’d end up like her.”
“You mean alone and angry?”
“She wasn’t always that way. When she was young she was full of dreams. And she was brazen and saucy, much like yourself.” He smiles. “A right card, she was.”
“That’s what’s so amazing.” Annie’s hits the table lightly with the side of her fist. “I hardly ever heard a funny word come out of her mouth. In all the years I knew her, she was always so serious, forever on the edge of bitterness.”
“It’s the only way she knew how to be in the end, but that don’t mean it’s how she really was. A person can only suffer so much before they just let go and give in to it.”
Annie leans in close to her grandfather. “So tell me about it.”
“Merce was awful private. I don’t know…”
“Please, Granddad. I need to kno
w.”
He hesitates. “You do, don’t you? You more than anyone else, just like Mercie said.” He studies her face for a moment, then takes a full long breath. “Something happened a long time ago, something awful. And Merce did what she had to do, and she survived. And when that was done, when she tried to put it behind her and start a new life…” He stops and presses his fingers against his forehead. When he speaks again there are tears in his eyes. “She was after falling in love, you see, in Nova Scotia, where she was an English teacher. She met a young man there from St. John’s, Louis Cunningham was his name. They decided to get married.” He stops again, and his knuckles rap the table in an angry rush. “But then Louis found something out, something he shouldn’t have been told, a thing Merce could hardly believe herself.” He peers past her out the window. “Louis Cunningham was her last chance for a regular life and he took that away.” After a brief silence he looks back at Annie. “Mercedes suffered more than you can imagine, but she carried on the best she could. Life dealt her some of the cruellest cards and there wasn’t one damn thing she could do about it.”
There is a raw honesty in his eyes, and his face is filled with torment. Annie longs to ask him to go on, to tell her more about this strange woman that only he knew so well. But it’s as if he’s no longer present in the room. His eyes seem distant, far away, and Annie can tell that he has drifted back to a time and place that he alone remembers. The only thing she can do to help him is to leave him be, for now at least, to let him rest there with the little sister he loved from the beginning of her life until the sad, lonely end.
Sadie is in a dream. It is not a good dream. She is wearing her favourite blouse, but the silky yellow material is ripped across the front, exposing part of her old, greying brassiere. Lucinda is there. She is holding Dermot’s hand. But then Dermot becomes Angus and he is watching Lucinda and Dermot walk away.
The dream shifts so that it no longer feels like a dream. It is happening now. Mercedes Hann stands at her bedside. Sadie knows she is there, somehow she can see her, even though she can’t open her eyes. She tries to make her eyelids go up, concentrates as hard as she can, but they’re stuck shut.
Mercy of St Jude Page 13
